


Point me where my life begins

by Gotta_seduce_the_Rainbow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Anal Sex, Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Derek Hale Gets Therapy, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Full Shift Werewolves, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Healing, Healing Derek Hale, Literal Sleeping Together, Living Together, M/M, Mates, Memory Loss, POV Derek, Scenting, Smut, Stiles Stilinski Deserves Nice Things, Touch-Starved, Versatile Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gotta_seduce_the_Rainbow/pseuds/Gotta_seduce_the_Rainbow
Summary: When Derek wakes up without his memory, he is left with nothing but a note he wrote himself. He no longer remembers anything personal, not himself, not anyone else.The note is pointing him towards the town Beacon Hills and once he is there, he is greeted by strangers telling him “Dude, I didn’t know you’re back in town”, which is confusing. Apparently, he grew up in Beacon Hills, but left a few years ago without telling anyone about it.There is this one stranger, who calls him dude and has the most amazing scent. Derek might just want to start his new life here. With this person.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 53
Kudos: 543





	1. Chapter 1

When he wakes up, there is nothing.

Well, not nothing nothing.

There is a dead rabbit on the road, looking rather rugged, while cars are rushing by from both sides. He can hear them droning on from a great distance like the headache lurking around the corner of an already bad day. He looks up at the sky, rubbing his head in search of something that could have possibly fallen on his head and caused the emptiness in his mind via serious concussion.

There is only the blue sky, not a cloud in sight. He can feel the icky press of dry grass under his palms, where he is putting his weight on his arms to hold himself up. He feels like he has been lying here for a while, his back aching, uneven ground, stones and sticks pressing into the underside of his legs. Scenting the air around him he notices nothing but wilderness and the dirt of the road for miles. There is a black Chevrolet Camaro parked on the other side of the road and he can smell familiarity all over it.

Deciding that he does not like to sit in the dirt, he gets up. He tries to clean himself of the dirt from the field, which makes him sway a little. He looks up and down the road, focuses on the car and starts staggering up to the asphalt. Suspiciously watching the roadkill rabbit out of the corner of his eye, he crosses the road, another car approaches, has to slow down a little before he is out of the way and immediately starts honking. He frowns. The sun is high up in the sky and he can see some flies circling over the rabbit, another car drives by, directly over the rabbit, missing it with its tires, but not the flies, which are then missing from the scene for a few seconds, before new ones begin to swarm around the carcass.

Breathing deeply, he reaches for the car door, but finds it locked. He sniffs, is sure of the fact the car belongs to him or that he has at least driven it recently, and begins to pat down the pockets of his leather jacket and jeans. He finds the car keys in the front pocket of his trousers, unlocks the doors and swings himself behind the wheel.

He tries to assemble himself.

“Okay.”

Nothing is okay.

He is stranded on the side of a nameless road in the middle of nowhere, nothing, not even traffic signs in sight.

He tries to remember why he had been sitting in the field next to the road. He cannot.

He tries to remember, where he is. He cannot.

He considers stopping one of the frequently passing cars in order to ask directions, but does not like the hypothetical results his brain is immediately coming up with.

“Hello. Where am I?”, he would say.

“You don`t know?”, the imaginary car driver would answer and

No.

He stops his brain at this point before it could come up with further dialogue, because he does very much not like being this out of control. He cannot trust strangers. He cannot trust to tell a stranger that he was not knowledgably in a topic as vital as his own location.

“Better not give anyone that kind of leverage.”

Huffing in annoyance, he searches the inside of the car until he finds a folded map and wallet in the glove compartment. He unfolds the map and finds it’s a map of California. He hopes that means he knows at least which state he is in now. Though, curiously, a piece of the map is missing, torn out rather than neatly cut and he focuses on the area around the missing piece. Unfortunately, it does not ring any familiarity and the surest thing he could say, was that it was part of Northern California. Frustrated he puts the map aside, opening the wallet with his thumbs and going through the cards inside.

Not much to go by.

But.

He pulls out a driver’s license.

“Derek Hale”, he reads the name aloud, turning it over in his head. He is not sure it sounds any more like his own name than any other name would. After a long look in the rearview mirror, he decides that yes, that is his driver’s license. He looks at where it had been issued. “New York.” He scowls.

“Well, that’s fucking helpful.”

He- or well, Derek Hale apparently, puts the driver’s license back into the wallet, and at first, he thinks there is nothing else but some cash in it, before he notices a folded piece of paper sticking out between the dollar notes. It was the missing piece of the map.

On the front there seemed to be nothing unusual of it, just way too much ground to cover, when trying to find oneself, and not a clue as to where to start.

As he turns the piece of paper over, he blinks at stark words that had been messily scrawled over the road lines and various towns and cities, trying not to drown in the infrastructure. Above the words, a tiny speck of Northern California had been circled in blue ballpoint, a town called “Beacon Hills”.

He reads the message quietly.

“Don’t try to get memory back. You traded it for sth better. Find Stiles. You can trust him. D.H.”

“What’s a Stiles?”, Derek mumbles.

*

It takes some contemplation, but finally Derek decides to follow the road the direction the car is pointing to. If he rolls down the window and concentrates on the scent traces, he can recognize that he has come from the other direction, parked the car, and, well, then the scent loses itself.

Derek is pretty sure, he did not just get out of the car, cross the road, sit in the dry grass in order to write an ominous note to himself and then conspicuously lose his own memory without any outer assistance.

He is pretty sure.

Still, that is exactly what his nose tells him happened.

So, in lack of a better option, he decides to follow the path he was originally going until he would come across a road sign, a gas station or whatever else, which could point him in the right direction to Beacon Hills.

Which is where he would be going

in order to find

a Stiles.

Whatever that is.

Oh, he has no illusions that his was not a trap, set by malicious minds, first taking his memory from him and then directing him without any trace of suspicion to the place, where they were undoubtably going to catch him and… well, he is not sure, what they are going to do to him, but probably something bad, like torture or religious sacrifices. Maybe that is why they had not just kidnapped him, but they want him to come ‘on his own free will’, leading the lamb to slaughter and such.

He was not going to run into a trap that easily.

Still, where else is there for him to go?

Decisively, he puts the map on the passenger seat and starts the engine.

*

The first road sign he comes across is not much help. It points him into the direction of a tiny ass town, whose name he actually finds in close proximity to Beacon Hills, but he is not completely sure whether he is driving in the direction of Beacon Hills, or away from it.

So, he keeps going.

Only as he is crossing the tiny ass town and finds the “You’re are leaving/entering” sign on the other side, can he tell for sure that he is, in fact, heading in the right direction. Though, by his own judgement and map reading skills, it will still take him close to an hour until he reaches his goal.

The sun begins to set and he glances at the time, seeing it is already close to seven pm. He tries to calculate back to when he had awoken in the field. He thinks, it might be important to know exactly when and where he has lost everything he had known and had been. But it had all been so fuzzy. Even now, he feels dizzy, thinking back to those first thoughts, where there had been nothing in his mind at all.

The roadside had looked unbelievably unspectacular.

There had been no specific smell to differentiate the place he had woken up in from any other.

Nothing but the direction he had come from, the car, and that damned dead rabbit.

Gripping the stirring wheel tighter, he growls slightly and then squints at the upcoming sign on the right side.

“Welcome to Beacon Hills”

*

There seems to be nothing special about Beacon Hills itself.

It appears to be a nice little town with parks, houses, diners, schools in a green valley surrounded by hills and forests and wilderness. Derek has the window rolled down, breathing the deep fresh air, letting it sooth him.

Immediately, he gets his guards up again and reminds himself of the traps.

Nevertheless, he does not get the feeling that the town itself poses any threat, and he slows his car down as he drives first through the suburban, then the urban areas, trying to catch a glimpse or a scent of anything that would lead him the way further.

He is not sure, whether he should avoid any eye contact with pedestrians at all, or give his best try in staring them down, just in case. He reaches for the glove compartment, because he had noticed sunglasses in there earlier, and puts them on his nose in order to leave his across guessing as to which option he had chosen.

Then, Derek would never admit it to anyone, not even himself, he nearly dies, as a police cruiser pulls onto the street behind him and signals him to stop the car

He tells himself to keep cool, sets the blinker and pulls the car to the side. The police cruiser parks behind him and an older man in uniform steps out from the driver’s side. As he comes closer, Derek catches a glimpse of his Sheriff’s star in the side mirror. The older man walks up to Derek and looks through the open car window.

“I thought that car looked familiar”, he says evenly after a few seconds.

“Sheriff”, Derek replies, keeping his voice even. He hopes this has not already been a false move.

“I didn’t know you’d be back in town.” The Sheriff sounds… disapproving? “Since when have you been back? Did you tell Stiles about your plans?”

Derek’s heart somersaults, but he tries not to let it show. He still has the sunglasses on and feels there is a good chance, none of his emotions show on his face.

Stiles.

This man knows Stiles.

Like, personally, it seems.

“I’ve only returned just now, and no, I didn’t tell anyone”, he says with as little inflection as possible.

The Sheriff musters him thoughtfully, while hooking his thumbs into his belt. Derek’s eyes flick for a second over the gun, then back to the Sheriff’s face, which looks as if he is contemplating, what he now wants to do with Derek. He does not look as if arresting him is completely out of the question.

“Well, maybe you pay him a visit, at least, if you stick around. That the plan?”

“Huh?”

“You plan on staying or are you just… passing through?”

“I- I don’t know yet.”

“Huh.”

A few second pass again.

“Yeah, well, if you want to tell Stiles, you’re back, I know he’d like to know. He’s only been back a few days himself. Hasn’t made plans for staying yet, either. Quite a coincidence that you both return just at the same time after having been gone for such a long time, huh?”

The Sheriff’s tone indicates, he did not think it a coincidence. At all.

“I guess.” Derek shrugs and tried to look standoffish at the possible invasion of privacy. To be honest, he is quite glad to get some information on his person, even if it is possibly unreliable. He now knows, that he had been in Beacon Hills before, that he knows the Sheriff, though, whether that was a good thing remains to be seen, and he had not been here for quite some time.

“Alright”, the Sheriff says suddenly, backing a bit off from the car. “I guess, I let you get going, then. But if you want to drop by sometime, you know where we live.”

Derek does not know.

He wants to know, though.

Especially, if it would lead him straight to this mysterious Stiles.

So, he takes a risk and gives his own person some humor.

“Your house didn’t change place?”, he asks, trying to put sarcasm in his voice, but without sounding snarky. He wants an answer, after all.

“Ha”, the Sheriff says, seemingly surprised. Yeah, Derek also could not imagine himself as a jokester. “Nah, still ol’ Woodbine Lane. Not much changes around here, it seems. Although, I’m quite alright with that, after all the ruckus we had in the past.” The Sheriff’s tone turns quite melancholic against the end here and Derek tries to take up the atmosphere.

“Yeah, I guess, a little bit boringness never hurt anybody.”

The Sheriff nods. Nods again, indicating the end of this conversation, and returns to his own car. Derek grips the wheel a little harder, breathes and repeats quietly “Woodbine Lane. Woodbine Lane. Woodbine Lane” as he starts the engine again and pulls back onto the road.

*

Once he cannot see the police cruiser in the rearview mirror anymore, Derek parks in front of a diner and pulls the map into his lap. It is difficult to locate single street names in the mess that is a whole state’s infrastructure, and he quickly gives up, decides, Beacon Hills cannot be that big, and returns to driving. He is sure to find the correct street by curving around slowly, reading signs, but once he is surprised by that one new scent, he forgets what he is looking for entirely.

The surprising new scent makes the hairs in his neck stand on ends, leaves his skin prickling and the wolf inside him whine pitifully.

He’s never smelled something like this before, which… does not say much in his current state of mind.

It smells of cinnamon, caffeine, freshly cut grass, forest, sweat

and magic.

It smells comforting and familiar, which soothes him and scares him at the same time. He does not know what to do, how to react to these strong feelings over the scent of a person, he has no memory of, has, as far as his mind is concerned, never even met.

His wolf does not care.

It pulls him down the street, turning down onto another, another, until he is pulling into the driveway in front of a seemingly ordinary house with an old-looking Jeep parked in front of it, and before he even knows what he is doing, he is out of the car and on the front porch, knocking on the door.

He can hear movement inside.

His mind tells him to LEAVE IMMEDATELY!

His wolf tells him to staystaystay!

He does nothing and the door opens.

The man in front of him is lean, though muscular with broad shoulders, wearing a dark shirt with a plaid flannel shirt over it. He is about the same height as Derek himself, and has short brown hair and honey eyes that widen in surprise as he sees Derek.

“Dude! I didn’t know you were back in town!”, he exclaims, looking at Derek in wonder.

“I-“, Derek stammers, but is left hanging by his apparent confusion.

The man obviously seems to know him. It absolutely fits what the Sheriff has hold him and if he concentrates, Derek can smell the Sheriff in this house as well, but Derek does not care about that currently. Derek inhales and is horrified to notice his nostrils are flaring. With every breath he takes in more of the man’s smell and he needs to stop immediately, before loses control.

“Dude, don’t strain yourself, I know you don’t like being called dude, but man, why didn’t you tell me, you were back in town? I didn’t expect you to call, but at least a short text? Would that have been too much? Don’t answer, I know being sociable isn’t your modus operandi. Honestly, I’m just glad you’re showing yourself without me having to drag your furry ass out of some hole. By the way? The door!? I don’t even remember, if you ever did that before!”

The man uses his hands a lot when he is speaking. Derek has troubles following their movement, not just because of their speed, but because he keeps getting stuck on individual elements of his physic, his hands, his fingers, the faint scares on his skin. His skin.

The man raises his arms above his head and exclaims:

“Like, don’t take this as a complaint, but why didn’t you enter through my window?”

Well.

Derek is not sure.

Instead, he is terrified.

And possibly heating up a bit.

“No words, man, huh? Don’t worry, I can converse with your eyebrows if must be. But come inside mi casa, don’t just stand there on mi doormatta, come in!”

So, Derek does. He follows the waving man, who strides through the entryway into the kitchen, and even closes the door behind him. In the kitchen the man begins to go through the cabinets, pulling out a plate with what seems leftover pizza, turns to Derek, asks:

“Want anything?”

Derek shakes his head.

The man shrugs.

“More for me then.”

Then he stuffs one of the pizza slices into his mouth, and Derek stares, and the man turns around, walks around Derek out of the kitchen again and Derek numbly follows him up the stairs. The room they land in is pure chaos. A giant suitcase is taking up most of the floor space, clothes are hanging out of, books sticking out in between. The bed is unmade and the desk almost is not visible under opened documents, books and various plates with left overs or half empty glasses.

The man sits himself into his desk chair and lets Derek sort himself out. Derek decides, there are no other options than to sit on the bed, so he does that. He immediately regrets the choice as the bed smells like someone, the man, has just taken a nap in it and now Derek also notices the slight traces of sleep sand around the man’s eyes, the soft red marks on his cheek and Derek also notices the little brown freckles.

“So how long have you been back for?”, the man asks after chewing and swallowing.

Derek tries to shake himself, but his mind is quite clouded and he has to focus to remember what the man had asked him.

“Today”, he answers briskly, trying not to inhale too much of the warm, comfortable air.

“Only today?!”

“Yes.”

“Well, not gonna lie, I’m surprised you’re dropping by so shortly after you’re back. I’m kinda feeling honored. You plan on staying?” He inspects Derek closely, drawing his eyes together, while chewing on pizza crust.

Derek is silent.

“We’ll see.”

The man nods.

“Guess that’s as good as I can expect. I don’t know what to do either, honestly. Kinda trying to figure myself out. That’s why I came back to stay with my dad again, like, for the meantime while I figure something else out. You know?”

It is a rhetoric question, since the man clearly does not need Derek’s input in order to hold up the conversation. So, Derek mostly just tries to look attentive, but also like he does not want to give any answers. He doubts he is able to hold a conversation at this moment, not just because he has no idea what to say, but because he is very much distracted.

The man notices, or maybe he is just used to people reacting like that, and replies himself.

“My dad, of course, thinks I should go back or anywhere really, look for some better job offer in the big city and get out of little old Beacon Hills, where your nice and friendly neighborhood consists of kanimas and hunters trying to kill you.”

Derek does his best to control his heartbeat.

The man knows about the supernatural. The wonderful smelling man knows about the supernatural. He must know about werewolves, too. He must know Derek is a werewolf. He must.

“Hm!”, the man makes a noise like he just remembered something important. He puts the plate aside and jumps out of the chair. “Stay there, I just forgot, I still have this open pack of chips lying around down in the living room.”

With that he is out of the room and Derek breathes in deeply, giving himself the chance to blink, repeatedly, and look dazedly around the room. He notices the window and remembers what the man had said to him about Derek usually coming through the window.

He quickly tries not to think about it, instead straightening his jacket, his hands pulling sharp fingernails over his jeans, trying to calm himself.

He closes his eyes and smells mountain ash.

*

Within the second Derek knows he has made a mistake. He flies out of the room and takes almost three steps at ones on his way down and to the front door which is staying wide open.

Why didn’t he hear the door?

Why did he let the man leave the room?

Why did he follow him inside in the first place?

He knows why and he curses himself for letting his wolf get the better of him.

Why did he have to be so stupid?

Why had he been so trusting?

He had just lost his memory, for god’s sake! He could not go around following strange men into their bedrooms without any second thought! He had been stupid and now he was paying the prize for it!

When Derek breaks through the open front door, he violently comes to a halt, hands curled to fists at his sides. Too late he notices he has wolfed out, boring his claws into his own palm and his bottom lip catching on his prolonged fangs.

There the man in the shirt and plaid flannel is standing in the front yard, a line of mountain ash between him and Derek, probably circling the whole house. Derek is trapped inside and it is of his own fault.

The man is still holding a little bag, probably where he is keeping his stack of mountain ash. He watches Derek with stern, hard eyes, which Derek likes a lot less on him, in contrast to the open and surprised smile he had given him, when he had first seen him only minutes earlier.

“Look, I’m really sorry if this is a mistake on my part”, the man begins. “but if not, then you know that I’ve gone through enough to not just ignore a bad feeling. We both have, I guess. And again, if this is a mistake, then I’m really sorry to do this to you, but you gotta answer me some questions.”

Derek growls, and the man, oddly, smiles a little sadly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’ve just been a little off today, with, like everything”, he says, almost to himself. “So, tell me, who are you?”

“You know me”, Derek insists. Because he is sure of that. He admits, he has not been on top of his mind with most things today, first, losing his memory, second, getting off path in order to follow a smell and third, getting so caught up in that said smell that he lets himself get trapped like a newborn pup. But he is sure.

This man knows him, or at least, has known him.

Derek just could not bear it any other way.

The man shakes his head a little, and Derek’s heart stutters.

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“You do”, Derek insists.

“Then tell me, how did I first save your life?”

Derek is quiet.

What else is he supposed to do? He has no idea, how this man has saved his life. He has no memories of any of it and he is too afraid, no, not afraid. He is too unsure of the little he knows to risk and say something false.

At his silence, the man looks even sadder.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You know what, I’m gonna give you another try, because maybe you’re just getting things mixed up. We saved each other quite a lot, after all, but this next question is something I never used to shut up about, so you know… better not get that wrong.”

He looks at Derek as if he really hopes this was just a fluke and he will get the next question right. Derek really has no hope he will.

“Who’s the person, I was in love with for like, all my teenager life, like you know, crush so giant you can see from the moon?”

And Derek is quiet. He thinks it may be a trick question, but he rather says nothing than saying anything so horribly wrong it will get him killed.

The man sighs.

“Well shit, what am I-“

“Wait!” Derek calls, holding his hand up, still in beta shift. “I really am me. I’ am, I guess, I’m Derek Hale, I just-“

The man looks rather skeptically and Derek cannot really blame him.

“I just lost my memory.”

The man raises his eyebrows.

“You lost your memory?”

“Yes.” Derek exhales, feeling surprisingly light after his confession.

“Like, lost your memory like because of amnesia, because you hit your head? Or did you get some sickness, like dementia? Is it dementia, dude? Because I thought werewolves couldn’t get sick and I really hope you didn’t get cursed and now have the memory of a goldfish. Wait, do you still know how you got here? Do you remember me eating that pizza? Wait, yeah, you probably do, but, like amnesia?”

Derek feels a bit faint.

“Yes”, he says, not sure, what he is answering to, “I remember you eating that pizza.”

The man wrinkles his nose.

“Well, I guess that’s good. Though, I can’t just believe you, you get that?”

“I get that.” Derek lets his shoulders hang. The man nods, keeps nodding and begins to walk up and down in front of the porch, always a few inches between himself and the barrier of mountain ash. Derek tries to pull himself together and get his wolf back on the inside, lest he be seen by some noisy neighbors. He watches the man thinking about possible solutions to having a potentially dangerous strange werewolf trapped in his own house, with him on the outside.

“Better get this resolved, before dad’s shift ends”, the man mutters as if they had just thought the exact same thing. The swirls around to Derek and points at him with his index finger.

“I know a spell. I mean, I know many spells, but I can do this specific spell in order to, like, see if you’re possessed or whatever.”

He looks at Derek. Contemplating.

“Well?”, Derek asks after a while, because, well, what other option is there.

“I need some stuff from my room to perform it”, Stiles explains.

“What?”

“I can do a spell to see if you are an evil being or Derek who lost his memory, but in order to do that, you need to go and get me a few things from my room”, Stiles elaborates as if this was completely reasonable.

Derek crosses his arms. He can feel that the fresh air is doing wonders to his confused mind. Less having to inhale the scent of this particularly weird man and more breathing, well, different things. More manageable things.

“And why should I do that?”

“See?”, the man says like he might be crazy, “this is where we have to think logically. If you are, indeed Derek, oh emotionally constipated Derek we all know and love, or love to hate or whatever, then this is in your best interest. You go and get me my stuff and let me do my thing as usual, you know, like all the times you came over to have me do your research. Or… I guess, you don’t know. Anyway, in the other case, the case of you being some evil being that took over Derek’s body, and let’s face it, goals, because if you’re gonna steal a body, this is definitely the one to go by, then you would, of course, not want me to find about it, and therefore, not go get me my things and let me do my thing.” He stops walking up and down and gives Derek an expectant look.

“You want me to go get your stuff, so you can perform some spell on my to convince you I’m really me?”

“Yeah, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude”, Derek replies irritably.

“You already sound like yourself again. So?”

Derek lifts an eyebrow. The man makes shooing motions with his hands. Derek curses his existence, rolls his eyes and gets going.

*

About half an hour later, Derek is still leaning against the doorframe and watches the man sitting cross-legged in the dry grass, tinkering with his equipment and occasionally glancing at the open book lying in the yard next to him. It looks a little like he decided to cook his dinner not in the kitchen like a normal person, but in the grass instead, cutting ingredients on his wooden board, grinding them and mixing them together in a little bowl.

Lost in thought, Derek watches the man’s face as he concentrates on the recipe for his spell, the little freckles on his face, his forearms, now visible as he has rolled up his sleeves. Derek does not notice the man has asked him something, as he is trying to count the freckles and unconsciously leans in a little closer to get another whiff of his scent.

“Dude.”

Derek staggers.

“What?”

“I said it’s ready. Come over and have a sip.”

“You want me to drink that?”

“Yeah, doesn’t work as well as an ointment, so, bottoms up.”

He holds the little bowl up, offering. Derek unfolds the arms he has crossed in front of his chest and steps closer. He bends down a little to take the bowl from the man’s hand and eyes it warily.

“How do I know this isn’t poison?”

The man shrugs.

“I guess, you don’t. But look at it that way. I got you trapped, so, I could have killed you already. No need for making a cooking lesson out it.”

Derek nods and puts the bowl against his bottom lip. He drinks every drop of the liquid, which is surprisingly tasteless. Only when he lowers it again, he thinks to ask:

“What’s this going to do?”

“It’s truth juice, man. Unsuspected consequences might be evisceration, time travel, flaying of flesh, STDs or castration. Tell me if any of these things happen to you.”

“What the hell?”

“Does it work already? Do you ever lick your own ass when you’re fully shifted?”

“What the hell?”, Derek asks annoyed, thrusting the bowl back into the other man’s arms.

“So, no?”

“No, I mean, it’s how wolves clean themselves, I mean, nyes, nyes!”, Derek shouts as he furiously tries to deflect the man’s question. He tries to say no, but his mouth does not seem to work right anymore.

“Oh my god, it’s working, that’s great! Also, the other thing, amazing, but now what am I gonna ask you to find out, whether or not you lost your memory, I mean, I cannot really ask you anything about yourself, if you don’t know… or do I ask you about yourself and if you do know, I know you did not lose your memory?”

Derek looks at him sternly.

“Oh, yeah, right! Are you Derek Hale?”

“Yes”, Derek hears himself replying and he had not known how badly he wanted to know this himself until he feels the relief wash over him.

“Good! Are you yourself?”

“I, er, yes, I guess.”

“You aren’t possessed?”

“No.”

“Alright, alright. Did you lose your memory?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember how you lost it?”

“No.”

“So, you don’t remember anything from before you lost it?”

“I, no, er, nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal, hm?”

The man glances around the area and seems to notice for the first time the other car parking in the driveway.

“Yeah, I guess, you wouldn’t have been able to drive your car here if you’d forgotten everything. How do you know you’re Derek then, though?”

“I found my driver’s license.”

“Smart.”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“Okay, so why did you come here, then? If you don’t remember me. You don’t, do you?”

“I don’t remember you from before I lost my memory.”

The man looks at him like he waits for him to continue. Derek does not even have to force the words out, they just come flying, like being pulled by an invisible fishing hook.

“I woke up a few hours ago in a field. I was right next to the road where the Camaro stood and I had the keys, so I gathered it is my car. In the car I found my driver’s license and my wallet. In the wallet I found a map with Beacon Hills circled and”, he hesitates, “a note.”

The man perks up.

“A note?”

“Yeah”, Derek grits out. The man looks back at the car, back at Derek again, and, without saying anything, runs up to the black Camaro. For a short second Derek thinks he will not be able to get inside since Derek still has the keys. But then he remembers the frenzy he had been in to get to the house from where that wonderfully enticing smell was coming from, and just as sure, the door opens without trouble as the man pulls at it. He climbs through the driver’s door and when he finally resurfaces again, he holds the torn-out piece of paper in his hand.

From a distance, Derek can see his face frowning in concentration as he reads the short note, then he looks up, over to Derek with wide eyes.

“So, you just followed this note to me?”

“No. I tried to find Stiles.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, I”, Derek stops himself before he could embarrass himself even further. Still, he obviously is not fast enough, because the man has seen the surprise on his face and is now looking even more confused. The man. The man is Stiles. The man is Stiles from the note!

Derek could have hit himself.

The note told him to find Stiles. He followed the note to this town, where the Sheriff stopped him and also told him to find Stiles. He has smelled the Sheriff in the house of this man. This man is Stiles.

“What the hell is a Stiles?”, he asks indignantly, because if he is going to look like an idiot anyway, he at least wants to drag this man down with him.

“The better option to my birthname”, Stiles smirks. “But, dude, how did you find me, if you only just realized that it’s me, you’re looking for?”

“I followed your scent” is out of Derek’s mouth before he even has a chance to bite down on his lip. He curses himself.

“My scent?”, Stiles squawks.

“It smelled familiar”, Derek cries.

“But I thought you can’t remember anything?!”

“I can’t! Not with my mind anyway!”, Derek manages to press out without the additional “not even with my nose”. Because he cannot actually remember Stiles’ scent. He just likes it very, very much. He knows how his nose works. He was able to smell himself all over the Camaro, which is why he recognized it as his car. He does not remember the Sheriff, although he had obviously met him before and he does not remember Stiles, even thought, he smells like all things home. But Derek be damned if he just tells him that.

“Well, that’s not too bad. Then I guess, we’re done. You remember you’ve smelled eau de stiles before, your note screams of survivor guilt and you being like all self-sacrificing and taking every opportunity to make your own life more miserable is just your standard weekday. So, I’m gonna take your word on that one, also the spell would have given you really bad cramps if you’d be lying on principle as in impersonating someone else.”

“What? You said it’s a truth serum.”

“I called it truth juice, and preventing you from lying in any form is exactly what it does. Pretending to be someone else and wearing their face is just another form of lying.”

“Alright! Alright!”. Derek barks, crossing the arms in front of his chest once more. Stiles looks at him curiously and the werewolf begins to scowl.

“So? What now?”, he asks impatiently.

“Now I’m gonna go and trust you to not kill me, when I break the mountain ash barrier.” He begins to destroy the line with the tip of his shoe, his eyes never leaving Derek’s. “And now I’m gonna go inside, because it’s getting late and I still have to cook dinner, before dad comes home from his shift.” He crosses the destroyed barrier, passes Derek, who stops him with a hand on his arm.

“My note”, he barks. Stiles looks surprised for a second that he is still holding the note and drops it into Derek’s open palm.

“Here, sourwolf. Now come. We’ll need to figure out a plan on what to do about your amnesia. But first there will be vegan burgers. Since you forgot, my dad needs to watch his cholesterol.”

*

“Man, I can’t believe you lost your memory. That’s like, so cliché, a real bummer”, Stiles says as he flips the veggie patties in the pan.

He has Derek slicing the tomatoes, who is slightly confused on how they got to this stage. Still, he has found Stiles, which is the person he is to trust if the note was really written by himself, so, he would say the day has been pretty successful.

Apart from losing all of his memories.

He imagines even that had some sort of purpose, as even the note he had left for himself to find suggests. He just wonders what he could have possibly traded his own memory for.

Not at the moment, though.

At the moment he slices tomatoes and listens to Stiles describing how much of a bummer it is that Derek lost his memory.

“Yes. Bummer”, he deadpans and Stiles cackles.

“Am I only imagining it or did you get funnier for losing your memory.” He instantly snaps his mouth shut after he said it, looking at the sizzling pan in horror. “Sorry, I guess, I guess I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why not?” Derek draws his eyebrows together.

“Well, I, er, forget it, did you want onions in your burger? If yes, there must be some in that bowl over there.”

Despite still being interested in what Stiles had wanted to say, Derek decides to let it slide for now and goes to retrieve one of the onions. They continue to work mostly in silence as Stiles seems to be lost in thought.

After a while, Derek’s ears perk up upon hearing another car arrive. At first, he cannot tell which car it is, but when a door is shut and steps are approaching the house, he can hear the familiar scent and heartbeat of the Sheriff he had met earlier. Only seconds later, a key twists in the lock of the front door and the Sheriff walks into the kitchen, halting as he sees Stiles preparing the burgers and Derek setting the table.

“Hello, son. Derek.”

Son. The Sheriff is Stiles’ father.

“Hello, daddio, dinner’s just finished.”

The Sheriff eyes the burgers on the table, then throws Derek another inspecting glance.

“Didn’t expect to see you so soon again.”

“Huh?”, Stiles asks and sits down at the table. “What do you mean? Derek’s been away forever.”

“Maybe so, but it seems he is back in town”, the Sheriff says, washing his hands in the sink and sitting down on the other side of the table. He fixes his eyes on Derek. “And when I met him a few hours earlier driving through town, I told him he should come see you. I didn’t think right away, though.”

Derek sits down at the table as well and reaches for the mayonnaise.

“You already met today?”, Stiles squawks indignantly. “And you told him to visit?” He turns to Derek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Derek shrugs.

“I didn’t know he meant you and then I sort of forgot.”

The Sheriff looks at him strangely. Then he turns to his son.

“Son? Explain?”

“Derek lost his memory and can’t remember either of us. He’s really confused, but not possessed so I invited him to dinner.”

The Sheriff inspects the werewolf closely.

“Lost your memory, hm? And you didn’t think you could have told me that earlier when I mildly threatened you to be more sociable?” He takes a large bite from his vegan burger, chewing like a man already having had to except one faith today and therefore not willing to let this other thing slide.

“Er”

“Dad, he didn’t know he could trust you! I mean, he lost his memory! How should he have known he can trust you if he doesn’t remember you or maybe remembering you in a deep underlying way but not in what relation you stand to each other. He can’t go up to the next best person, saying, help me, I lost my memory!”

“Well, next time he loses his memory he knows.”

“I don’t think it works that way.” Derek grunts. Both of these people are seemingly crazy and here he is, sitting with them at the table and eating burger patties made of fritted peas and corn. He weirdly feels like he should have objected to this kind of treatment. Asking to give real meat to the wolf or something.

He had never once in his life thought about cholesterol.

“So, Derek, where are you staying?”

“Here, tonight, I think that’s for the best”, Stiles answers in the werewolf’s place.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Better keep an eye on him.” Then Stiles winks at Derek and Derek hastily stuffs the rest of his burger in his mouth.

Later, they set up the guest bedroom for him, Stiles tells him to find his way, “You know, just follow your nose, I bet bathrooms have a particular smell, you’ll know it”, then hands him shirt and joggers and a towel. When Derek holds the clothes up and asks whose they are, Stiles tells him, “Yours. Well, I borrowed them once and left them in my closet. No reason to sort them out when I was away to study, anyway.”

The clothes smell of washing powder and soap and very faintly of Stiles. Stiles leaves him to it, and Derek changes into the borrowed clothes, hugging them to him as he settles in the freshly prepared guest bed. As he listens to the calming sound of Stiles breathing in the other room, he falls asleep and only wakes in the morning when he hears someone singing in the shower.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there!
> 
> This work is fully written mind for a few details that are still worked on.
> 
> I will update the new chapters every few days!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again ^^
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of my fanfic!
> 
> Here's the next bit. It's quite long and got lots of story to it.
> 
> There will be smut as well - you are warned! LOL

When Stiles comes into the kitchen later, hair still damp from the shower and a shirt clinging to his upper body where he still is a little wet, he loudly exclaims:

“Dude! I didn’t know you could make pancakes!”

Derek turns the gold-brown pancake over with the spatula and has to think about how it is the color of Stiles’ eyes. He is still wearing the shirt and joggers the younger man has lent him, though they now smell distinctly more of sleep and the bedsheets in the guestroom.

“I didn’t know either.”

“Awesome, I’m gonna have to keep you around just for that.” Stiles gets himself a plate and steals one of the pancakes that are already finished and cooling off. He seats himself at the table and starts pouring generous amounts of maple syrup over his pancake. Derek steals glances over his shoulder at him every now and then, how his cheeks look a little flushed from exiting the hot shower. His fingers look soft and there are single water droplets gliding from the tips of his hair down to his ears and deeper down his neck. Derek licks his lower lip. Stiles continues talking.

“Though, don’t feel compelled to cook all the time, it’s not like I expect you to pay rent. As a furry friend you’re invited to stay as long as you want to. I’m just really curious now how much else has changed since you lost your memory. Is this dickish of me? Should I tell you, how much I miss the old you? Because I totally do! Really got used to all those conversations between my big mouth and your impressive eyebrows, but I don’t know, you kinda seem-“

He stuffs his big mouth – Derek swallows – with pancake and effectively stops himself from talking. Instead, he musters Derek curiously.

“What?”, Derek asks, shoves the last pancake on the already full plate, and puts the pan aside.

“Nothing, just, you seem kinda different now. Not, like, possessed-different, just… different.”

“I guess that happens when you forget everything you’ve learned over the course of your life”, Derek concedes and joins Stiles at the table.

“No, no, I mean, you’re still you! You still scowl a lot and sometimes you don’t talk and you kinda look grumpy and, well, no…”

“No?”

“I was going to say, I’m still a bit suspicious about you being so different, but that might just be it. You’re more relaxed… Dude, no, don’t do that!”, he suddenly exclaims as Derek is just about to take the first bite of his breakfast. He stops his fork midair.

“Dude, you totally forgot your maple syrup!”

“I don’t want any.”

“DUDE! How can you?”

Instead of dignifying Stiles’ outrage with an answer, Derek takes his bite and chews.

*

Derek thought Stiles might have some plans about spending his time in Beacon Hills. From what he had heard, he had assumed Stiles was only passing through, like, through life stations. He had been here when he was a child and left to grow up and study and now, he is back to figure out what comes next. He might want to find a job or another place to move to or just enjoy spending some free time. Whatever his plan was, he now really seems set on taking Derek shopping.

The idea had come up at breakfast.

“Where is your father?”, Derek had asked.

“Probably early shift”, Stiles had answered.

“Do you have anything planned for today?”

“Not really, you? You gonna go look for whatever took your memory and demand it back?

Derek had contemplated it.

“No. I need you to help me with something, though. If you want.”

Stiles had gotten up from the table, putting his empty plate into the sink and turning the faucet on.

“Sure. Help with what? Doing research?”, he had suggested. Derek had drawn his eyebrows together.

“That too, maybe. I thought, since you know me, you might be able to tell me whether I have a bank account or something like that. I need to buy some supplies and maybe find a place to stay, and I don’t have any money on me.”

“Oh! Of course, dude, what about your loft?”

“I have a loft?”

“Oh. Right.”

*

Together they stand outside the apartment building, which Stiles claims, belongs to Derek all together, but as he is “a hopeless luggage when it comes to feng shuiing the shit out of a place” he only actually lives in one of the apartments. The rest is apparently empty for comfort reasons.

“I don’t know, you have some serious trust issues, and also about boundaries and werewolf smelliness”, Stiles explains halfheartedly as Derek asks and pulls out a spare key. “Someone had to keep an eye on it.”

So, he leads him through the grated door to apartment number five, where he pulls up another key, and lets Derek step inside first.

“Su casa is su casa again, mi amigo.”

“¡Por favor, para!”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

The apartment is, well, small. Still, it looks spacy as there is barely anything in it.

The walls are bare, there are no shoes or anything in the entry way, no furniture in vision bare for a worn-out leather couch, and glancing in the kitchen, someone, Stiles, Derek’s brain supplies, has obviously cleaned out everything with an expiration date. It looks like no one has lived here in forever. Derek supposes it makes sense, since both Stiles and his father had mentioned he had not been in Beacon Hills for quite a while.

Possibly not since Stiles himself had moved away to go to university.

“It can actually be quite nice, if you give it some personal touches here and there”, Stiles says, walking up and down the walls, gesturing to various empty spaces. “Some book shelves here, maybe a coffee table.” He goes to have a look into the bedroom and Derek hears some rustling before Stiles calls to him “Yeah, we better get you some new clothing! Those look really not good to wear anymore, well, if you’re a fan of rags and dust, I guess, though I always took you more for the secretly shiny leather guy. There’s some great shoes here that we could use, though!”

Derek only feels more despair at these feeble attempts at making this place more livable. He could not help but be reminded of the atmosphere in an IKEA, where there were about a thousand different smells and still the furniture looks nice and presentable. Here, there were not even the scents of strangers, only this eerie nothingness.

He sits down on the leather couch and tries it out.

“I don’t want to live here”, he finally decides.

At that, Stiles perks up, hands still raised in the air from being waved around the apartment, having stopped mid-movement. He lowers them and comes to sit next to Derek. For a while, they are both quiet.

“So, a new start then?”, Stiles asks.

“Will you help me?”

“Sure deal, you know me, trustworthy Stiles, helping you get back on your amnestic feet.”  
Derek sighs, but only to hide his slight smile.

*

So, they go shopping together.

First, they shop for clothes. Shirts, hoodies, jackets, jeans, pajama bottoms, socks, underwear and later the toiletries follow, and then Stiles makes a detour and runs away with about half of Derek’s stuff slung over his arm, just to return with a mug full of paw prints on it. He declines to help Derek any further if he is not allowed to buy this present for him, so they settle on an agreement, meaning Stiles gets his way.

“Stiles?”, a woman asks as they pile their items on the check-out counter. She is about the age of Stiles’ father and has long dark hair.

“Melissa”, Stiles exclaims, arms full of clothing items. He nods in greeting. “How are you?”

“I got a day off, doing some shopping.” She smiles at Stiles, but frowns at Derek. “Derek Hale. I didn’t know you were back in town.”

Derek is starting to think he was quite infamous in this town.

“He just arrived yesterday, we’re also doing some shopping”, Stiles tells her, and to Derek “That’s Melissa. She’s my best buddy’s mum and a nurse. You knew her.”

Derek turns to Melissa and offers an unsure greeting.

“Hello.”

Melissa looks at him in confusion.

“Derek lost his memory”, Stiles tells her offhandedly, “Don’t worry about it.”

He pays for the mug and then lets Derek pay for the rest, reminding him of his pin code. They had already gone to the bank together in order to find out how Derek can access his account again. It had all gone rather smoothly, especially since Derek still had his card, I.D. and could do his signature by muscle memory.

Stiles claims he lets Derek pay for the sole reason of training his memory, so, he will not forget his pin code again. Derek does not tell Stiles that he has already memorized the few numbers, because he enjoys Stiles leaning in close in order to help him.

“How’s Scott?”, Stiles asks as they wait for Melissa to check out as well. They walk together to the nurse’s car, where she deposits the new blouses, she bought, on the passenger seat, and exchanges a few more pleasantries with Stiles.

“He’s doing well. Still struggling with his thesis. Although, last I heard, he rather takes Kira on dates than working on his studies. He always was so easily distracted, fist by you, now by his girlfriends.”

Stiles laughs.

“I was just as jealous as his schoolwork then, when he ignored me as well once he fell in love. I had to get into serious trouble later on to get his attention.”

“Yeah, you two always were trouble.” She smiles and gets in the car. “Stay save and greet your father for me.” She looks past Stiles go catch a glance at Derek. “I hope, you’ll get better.”

They wave as she leaves the parking lot and then resume their way to the Jeep.

“Who’s Scott?”, Derek asks, trying not to show his own jealousy as they drive back to Stiles’ place.

“My best friend. We grew up together, went to school together, and one stupid fateful night we went into the forest together to look for… well, something stupid and Scott got bitten by an omega werewolf. He turned and nothing has been the same since then.” He taps the steering wheel with his fingers, eyes staying on the road. “He had really bad asthma before, so the bite wasn’t all bad and he got really good in sports after that. Got a sports scholarship and our ways parted after high school. We don’t see each other much anymore, but that’s alright.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Stiles smiles thoughtfully. “I was really annoyed by him a lot, when we were all in together to fight the evil here, and he would not answer my calls or skip on pack night to hang with his girlfriend. But I guess, there’s no reason for feeling left behind if you’re both in different states, and can’t see each other anyway. We sometimes chat or talk on the phone, and that’s enough. We both got our own lives.”

“Does he have a pack?”

“Nah, he never was very good at the whole werewolf thing.”

Derek becomes thoughtful at that. He has heard, or, well, he thinks he has heard stories, because the stories are in his head, but he cannot really connect them to anything or anyone. He knows about werewolves going rogue because of the lack of having a pack, of feeling the emptiness and loneliness of having to run alone, missing all the touching and skin-contact and scenting. Sure, he has not had much of that either, he can feel that, but he wants it again. Sometime soon preferably.

“I cannot imagine”, he mumbles. The rest of the ride is silent as they are both lost in thought, and afterwards they carry their purchases inside. Stiles sends Derek up to wash his new clothes before he wears them, and also do the other laundry. Derek manages to figure out how the washing machine works and when he comes down, Stiles has prepared a cup of coffee for him in the new mug. He looks very smug, as well.

Derek scowls, but accepts the paw-mug-coffee and Stiles asks if he wants to play some board games.

Derek finds out he is excellent at checkers, but truly horrible at any other card or board game Stiles comes up with. Stiles keeps a tally list across all the games they play and jumps up and down and does his victory dance every time he wins. He truly is a menace and Derek questions more than once whether Stiles is really an adult.

Stiles proves he is of age by bringing out the beer bottles, turning checkers into a drinking game. Derek finds it a questionable choice to try this with the one game Stiles is bad at, but does not point out this flaw. After a few dozen sips, Stiles tries to sneakily pour beer into Derek’s coffee mug and starts cheating.

“Is it, like, bad for you to be without pack?”, he asks, when Derek makes a tally for his 16th win.

“It’s not… ideal”, Derek confesses.

“But, dude, you were always alone!”

Derek winces. He had already feared something like that. A plausible reason why he had been able to lose his memory without anyone coming to look for him.

“I don’t know about my previous self, but it’s not by choice. Wolves have packs.”

“But, do you at least have me? Am I pack?”, Stiles questions with wide eyes.

“I guess, but it’s not… the same”, Derek adds lamely, meaning, he could totally live with Stiles being his only other pack member if must be, but it was not really enough, to just, have him for board games and a few beers. There has to be contact.

“How?”

“Huh?”

“How is it not the same?”

“Well, with pack, with werewolves there is usually a lot more touching involved.” At Stiles’ suggestive grin, he hastily adds. “It’s normal between all werewolves and nothing dirty. It’s just to mark every pack member, so they’re recognizable by scent.”

“You wanna piss on someone?”, Stiles slurs.

“No, and you are a horrible person.”

Stiles smiles satisfied and opens his arms wide.

“So, come at me, dude. Scent me.”

If he had not been so hungry for exactly that, Derek would have been mortified at how fast he jumps out of his chair and rushed around the table to put his arms around the man’s middle and burry his face in Stiles’ neck. He can feel him shaking as the man laughs softly, but Derek does not care. Instead, he drags his nose up and down the man’s throat, inhaling the smell of forest, earth, coffee, cinnamon and grass deeply. It only makes him tighten his grip and when Stiles stops laughing, he puts his arms around Derek too, rubbing his nose a little against Derek’s ear.

He feels so content right now. He might not know Stiles very well, or anyone else, or himself, but with him scent marking Stiles and Stiles scenting him back, even if it might not be intended, he feels a lot less alone.

“This is nice”, Stiles murmurs and Derek nods in agreement, holding him even closer.

“Dude”, Stiles asks softly, “are you purring?”

“No”, Derek denies. Because werewolves do not purr.

“You totally do.”

After a few minutes, Derek finally starts to feel his legs since he is awkwardly leaning over the man still sitting in his chair. He is not sure whether he should keep standing or kneel down and instead hovers somewhere in the middle, which grows more and more uncomfortable after a while. Additionally, Stiles’ breathing starts to even out as he is falling asleep. It’s only the late afternoon, but maybe drinking makes Stiles sleepy, and Derek lets go of him. Immediately, Stiles’ eyes blink open and he frowns.

“Why did you stop?”

“You were falling asleep.”

“I guess. Let’s move to the couch.”

Without waiting for Derek to protest, he gets up and pulls him by the hand into the living room. He plops down at the couch, making Derek sit next to him. Stiles yawns. Then, he slightly pushes at Derek’s shoulder, obviously having no delusions of being able to actually pushing him. So, Derek goes willingly and lies flat down on the couch.

“I need to sleep on the inside or I’ll fall down”, Stiles tells him and squeezes himself between Derek and the couch. There is a lot of wiggling going on and Derek does his best not to react to it, instead he pulls his eyebrows together in concentration and looks as if this is a fate worse than death. Stiles throws an arm over Derek’s middle and puts his head on his shoulder. Almost immediately he starts snoring softly.

“This is fine”, Derek whispers and already thinks about having to stay awake without getting any sleep. But then he takes a deep breath and their mingled scents is so calming that it makes him feel all warm and fuzzy and before he knows it, he has fallen asleep, too.

*

He jolts awake when he hears a car driving up to the house. His limps have gotten even more tangled up with Stiles’ and when he realizes that Stiles’ father is about to enter the house, he tries to get up, but instead trips and falls off the couch. Stiles is luckily not being pulled with him, but the noise makes him wake up and for a few short seconds he just blinks confusedly around the room.

“Did you fall down?”, he asks, then must hear the footsteps as well, and his eyes shoot open. “How late is it? I forgot to cock dinner!” He jumps of the couch, flailing, steps over Derek and goes into the kitchen. Derek follows and starts putting the checkers pieces together that are strewn all over the table.

“I’m home”, the Sheriff greets them and throws a look into the kitchen. “What happened? You look tired.”

Stiles rubs the sand out of his eyes as he takes the ingredients for sandwiches out of the fridge. Vegetarian sausage, cheese, pickles, mayonnaise and ketchup.

“We were just taking a nap.”

“Together?”

“At the same time, yeah”, Stiles deflects and his father throws him a skeptical glance. Derek is glad he can take this exact moment to put the checkers game back in the drawer in the living room. The Sheriff seems to decide to let it go and disappears to wash his hands in the bathroom.

“Tomorrow we can go and look at houses, if you want”, Stiles says and Derek does not know how to feel about that.

They eat their sandwiches for dinner, the Sheriff goes to watch sports in the living room, where he falls asleep and Stiles and Derek go up to their respective bedrooms. When Derek cannot fall asleep and instead tosses and turns, he wonders if that is because he was sleeping only hours earlier or because he is missing the warm feeling of Stiles against him, and his scent in his nose.

*

The next day, they go look at houses together, which is, well…

“Good morning, Mr. and Mr. Hale, if you would follow me”, the real-estate agent greets them, making Stiles grin widely and elbowing Derek in the side once the agent turns around to open the front door of the house. Derek rolls his eyes, but on the inside, he secretly preens at the thought of having Stiles, awesome smelling Stiles as his husband. Fortunately, he is able to recognize this thought as mental and his wolf being needy, so he is able to suppress it.

Mostly.

The realtor has selected a few possible buildings that would fit Derek’s budget and interests, and they look at about six houses and apartments in one day, before Stiles decides it is enough and they need breakfast for lunch. He tells the realtor they will have to think about it.

They return to the car and Stiles directs Derek to the diner, he had stopped in front of on his first day in town. The waitress shows them a free table by pointing at it with her chewed on pencil, and then leaves them with a couple of menus to order from.

“I think the maple syrup is mandatory if you order the pancakes”, Stiles offers offhandedly and Derek snorts, ordering eggs and bacon.

Derek is glad Stiles is part of this all. Even for the preparation, Stiles has almost done all of the work. Derek tells himself the reason is only that Stiles wants him out of the house, in order to keep his wolf in check.

It works occasionally.

Stiles had contacted the realtor agent and now he is helping Derek with his decision. He had helped find his bank information in order to find out how big is budget is in the first place. 

Quite big, he had discovered.

“How did I make all this money?”, he had asked Stiles and Stiles had looked very melancholic and told Derek it was all family money and that he did not know if Derek ever even had a job, but that he had always used his money very sparsely.

“Where is my family?”, the werewolf had asked and Stiles had tilted his head to the side, possibly ruminating about deflecting the question, before he had said:

“I think your younger sister might live in a pack in Brazil, and somewhere you have a crazy uncle, but most of your family died in a fire when you were a teenager.”

“Oh”, he had said and tried to detect how that made him feel. He had not known. Still does not know really, but when he had woken up without his memory, he had felt quite calm about it all. Sure, he had been worried about being hunted by some monster and about not knowing who he is and who he can trust, but it all feels kind of… secondhand.

He really does not worry too much about himself, now that he does no longer know himself, he recognizes.

It had all become… rather pointless.

Worrying? About what?

About being betrayed?

How can he feel betrayed without having a reason to trust someone?

He recognizes the trust he has in Stiles as what it was. As a combination of having his name read on an unbelievably ominous paper and wanting to nonstop bury his face in the man’s neck and scent the hell out of him.

If he was to die because he was trusting Stiles… well… he supposes he would not even know what he would lose.

After all, what is there to lose if you have no past and not even a future figured out yet?

“Dude, everything alright?”, Stiles suddenly asks, tearing Derek from his thoughts. The werewolf looks up from his plate to see the younger man looking at him with interest. “You’re kinda scowling at the bacon like it just made some stupid decision and you have to judge it for it.”

“I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing important”, he deflects. Stiles does not seem to believe him and somehow Derek has not expected anything else. He recognizes that Stiles is actually really bright, even though, he sometimes talks a whole lot of trash. It is actually a bit endearing.

“Are you not gonna ask me any questions?”, Stiles asks after he obviously used up all his energy on holding back and trying to leave it alone.

Derek makes a questioning sound.

Stiles waves his hand vaguely through the air.

“You know. About you. Your past. Your family. What was before you lost your memory.”

Derek thinks about it, then forgets to think about it and instead starts watching the people sitting in the booth behind Stiles. They obviously do not have breakfast for dinner, but instead are already enjoying their afternoon coffee together with chocolate cake. They seem to be an older couple. They share a newspaper, the man doing the crossword, the woman reading him his horoscope. He’s an Aquarius. Suddenly, Stiles’ big eyes come into focus as he shifts to the side and in between Derek and the other booth.

“You alright?”

“Yes, I’m just- I guess I don’t really want to know.”

“Seriously?” Stiles starts talking with his hands again. “I would totally be all over you if I had lost my memory, pestering you about who I am, what I do, and whether I’m popular and who I took to prom, and if I have any food allergies, although that might be irrelevant to werewolves, but not to me, though. I’d immediately ask you to a game of 20 000 questions, if I can even stop there. Aren’t you curious at all?”

Derek shrugs.

“I got the sense from the note I left myself, that hearing about my past life would not be all that pleasant.”

“So, that’s that? You lost your memory and your old life is dead? You’ll leave it behind and start anew?”

“Maybe.” He takes a sip from his coffee. It smells deep and earthy and delicious and suddenly, Derek feels like that is something he would like. Earthy, deep smells all around him, living somewhere in nature or close to it, where the forest animals would come up to his windows at night and he can just leave the house and shift immediately to run. He wants to run again.

He does not remember when he last ran, but even though, he knows deep down it is something wolves do with their pack – and Derek obviously does not have a pack – he cannot be bothered to feel sad at the thought. Sure, Stiles has offered, but Derek can not actually ask that of him, to be part of a pack with him, when Derek has nothing at all to offer.

Nevertheless, he wants to feel the earth under his paws again, wind going through his fur and the aching of the trees in his ears. He thinks about running and the faint hope of being able to come home to someone sharing his living space with him, making good coffee.

“You thinking about one of the houses we saw?”

“No, but I think I know what I want now.”

*

They drive there in the Jeep, taking a gravel road through the forest with tall trees, wet leaves sticking to the tires until they near the Preserve. Right at the edge there is a house, standing tall, like a wooden ruin. It reminds Derek of a not yet started may fire.

“What happened here?”, he asks as they jump out of the car and approach the burnt building.

“Fire.”

“I can see that, but-“

“This is the house, where your family lived.”

Derek stares.

After a while, Stiles breaks the silence.

“Did you, like, remember? Is that how you knew to come here?”

“No, I don’t think so, I just”, he leaves the end of the sentence hanging and instead runs his hand over the brittle walls. He feels them breathing und his palm, as if there are ghosts howling beneath the wooden planks. “I don’t know. Do you think, they’d… do you think, I’d be mad at me for tearing it down? It feels wrong to leave such horrible sight just standing here without doing anything.”

“You want to tear it down?”, Stiles asks surprised.

“Is that wrong of me?”

“I don’t know, dude, it might just be healing, like, cleansing your soul by cleansing the Preserve of this awful eyesore. No offence, but I’d have torn it down instantly, I think. Probably would have torn down the hospital after my mother died. Not her grave though, but, like, one of those is the place where I’ve seen her looking sick and wasting away for way too long and her grave is where I can talk to her, and it’s all peace and wilting flowers, which is alright. But the hospital, tear it down, I say. Not literally, though, I needed the emergency room about every other week when I was a teenager.”

Derek watches Stiles’ flailing hands fondly, putting a pin in the mention of his dead mother. Maybe he will ask him another time about it. He turns back to the house and lifts his hand off the wall. His palm feels rough, and dusty.

“Okay.”

*

Derek has a vision of himself swinging a sledgehammer and destroying the whole building with his bare hands, but in the end, they proceed about it much more civilized. They head back home, where Stiles’ father just comes home from his shift, they eat dinner together and Stiles researches how to go about demolition. The fire, the years of no one taking care of it have really taken a toll on the old Hale house and remodeling it would probably be a waste of time.

Before they will be able to even demolish the old house, they will need to get a permission for building the new house. They will need to organize the disposal of the materials. All in all, the demolition will take about a week, then they will need to find an architect to plan the new house. In between, Derek and Stiles discuss whether it is all worth it. If maybe they should just renovate the old house, try it at least, or even look for a house somewhere else entirely, but in the end, they decide it is better to get a clean cut. Not only getting rid of the house, but also the memories that it holds.

Even without having any memories right now, Derek is kind of… afraid of what will happen, if they suddenly return and nothing has changed. He feels it will be better if everything has changed and he feels horrible about that, because then at least he has done something.

Tomorrow, they decide, they will contact a demolition contractor for the job, get all the necessary permits and arrange everything.

“Iron man 1?”, Stiles asks in the evening, preparing salt and butter for popcorn.

“What’s that?”, Derek asks and Stiles drops the empty bowl on the floor. It’s luckily plastic and only bounces once before rolling under the table.

“Dude, don’t tell me you’re serious!”

Derek laughs and tells him he might remember vaguely. So, Stiles slaps him playfully and threatens to watch all Marvel movies with him in one evening. Derek replies that the physics might not work out there, but Stiles promises he will make it happen.

They watch Ironman 1, and start part 2, but Stiles falls asleep in the middle of it, his feet up in Derek’s lap and his head on the armrest. Derek allows himself to fall asleep as well, even if the Sheriff is home.

*

Once everything is organized – Stiles had taken to researching again with Derek mostly trailing behind him giving opinions when asked – they both watch as the demolition constructers roll their engines up in front of the old Hale house. They have secured the area and everything is ready to start, and Stiles makes Derek stand in front of the house as they tear it down, so he can take a picture.

“Look a little more depressed.”

“Why?”

“In case your old self comes back and thinks you were possessed when he sees this picture.”

Derek rolls his eyes, but puts his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and glares at Stiles. The man takes about half a dozen pictures, then tries himself at selfies and Derek is persuaded to look into the camera while Stiles puts his arm around his shoulder, grinning like a madman.

“We should probably order pizza for all of us. I heard somewhere that construction workers are more likely to finish their work without interruptions when they are being fed.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The internet.”

“Well, then it must be true.”

“Do not mock me, Derek Hale, I’ll have you know I can detect mockery from miles away. You could probably lock me into an interrogation room with any criminal how hard he may be and I’d tell you without help if he was mocking me. Now, that won’t be helpful with solving a murder case, but at least I won’t look like a fool in front of him.”

Derek laughs and Stiles grins very self-satisfied, and they do order pizza for all of them.

*

Derek is out in town alone, by himself.

He had wanted to take walk and Stiles had accompanied his father to the station in order to assist with a case. That is what he is doing now and then since he has his major in criminology and additionally, ample free time.

So, Derek decides to go out, and when he comes across the grocery store on his way back, he remembers how Stiles had wanted to try the new vegetarian patties for his dad. Before he knows it, he is checking the expiration dates on various fake meat products.

When he waits in line to pay, he notices the lady before him has white curls and has bought a mug with a white poodle on it. Derek tries to imagine the joke Stiles would make, about her being a werepoodle in disguise or something, and he has to snort about how lame his own joke is. Then he feels sad, because he misses Stiles, and because he has literally seen Stiles only hours ago and still, he misses him.

*

“Derek?”, Stiles calls as soon as he steps inside the house, hours later, when he returns from the precinct. His father accompanies him, and Derek looks up from the couch from where he is trying to read a book and relax.

“We’ve got a case and I think there’s something supernatural about it. Wanna research it with me?”

“Sure.” Derek practically jumps from the couch.

They disappear upstairs, where Stiles sets up his computer in his room, and is listing all the evidence for Derek. It is about a series of people having suddenly started to sleepwalk and woken up in the middle of the woods with no memory of how they got there. Most of these cases have gone unnoticed as the persons in question had returned home themselves and maybe started asking their doctor for sleeping pills, but not reported it to the police. The first reported case has involved a woman declaring her husband missing, since he had also started sleepwalking into the forest, but then fell into a hole and could not get out of it again himself.

There has been a search party looking for him. Luckily, he was found unharmed, but after that, more cases came up of people reporting the same experiences.

“Did that happen to you? With your memory loss, I mean?”, Stiles asks after he has listed all the facts, and Derek shakes his head.

“No. I did not sleep walk, because my car was stopping near the road and I never heard of someone who is sleepwalking starting and driving a car. Also, these people only forgot how they got into the woods. I forgot my entire life.”

“Good point.” Stiles starts chewing on his pencil, wiggling around in his chair. Derek sits on the edge of the bed opposite of him, the open case file in his lap. Suddenly, Stiles gets up, and starts looking for something in his bookshelf. He pulls out an old-looking book and hands it to Derek. “Do you know what this is?”

Derek eyes the book warily, but when he opens it, he immediately knows what it is.

“A bestiary.”

“Yeah, I kept it save, but I don’t actually use it anymore.”

Derek looks up surprised.

“Dude, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, that I’d be all over this with all the research that I do. But I’ve read it! And not just that, I wrote it down, put it into an online database. Now I can access it from anywhere if I have access to a computer, and I know, that doesn’t always need to be the case, if, for example, I'm kidnapped and held as a prisoner. I obviously wouldn’t have my computer with me then, but it’s super useful in case someone wants to steal or destroy the bestiary, because once something is online, it’s never lost.” He looks expectantly at Derek.

“You put the bestiary in an online database?”, Derek asks.

“Yeah, dude!”, Stiles exclaims and walks past him to get to his computer. He pulls up a website, types in name and password, and, Derek gets up from the bed, putting bestiary and file aside. He puts one hand on the backrest of Stiles’ chair, one hand on the desk and looks at what he sees on the brightly lit screen. It’s a neatly structured database, holding numerous categories into which supernatural creatures, spells, mixtures and others are organized into, and then Stiles demonstrates how he can just pull up any information, like “bloodlust”, by simply typing the word in the search bar and all the relevant entries come up immediately. Derek says nothing.

“I know, right?”, Stiles says for him. “Awesome.”

“Why do you even need my help?”, Derek questions, because seriously. He is not even sure how much of his knowledge about the world he has lost, and here Stiles is, asking him to help him with a case, when he is literally the most prepared person Derek knows.

The fact, that Derek currently knows around four different people is absolutely irrelevant.

“I still haven’t catalogued everything! I need your help to figure out this case, and moreover, I want your help! It’ll be fun! Fighting evil like the old days.” He grips Derek’s forearm and Derek gulps. He is way too close right now, he might just hug and scent Stiles again, but he is not sure if he has permission, or this is a good moment.

So, instead, he just nods.

“Awesome, dude.”

*

They divide their days between overseeing the construction side, and doing stake out in the woods to wait for sleepwalking humans. It had taken a whole week for the demolition crew to take down the house, and at first, the area had been a giant mess. Derek and Stiles had never imagined that taking care of all the destroyed materials would be this pricy, but it still did not stretch their budget.

In between assisting the Sheriff, researching mythical creatures and amnesia, doing chores, they had met with an architect, a nice older woman, who they tasked with designing a blueprint for the new house. Stiles imagined something open and spacey. Modern. Chic. Something fitting with Derek’s overall look of sports cars and leather jackets. He had actually borrowed Derek’s jacket for the demonstration of his expectations.

He had walked up and down in the architect’s office, dark sunglasses on his nose, and done ridiculous poses. Derek and the architect had watched him, as he had thrown out phrases like:

“It’s got groove it’s got meaning. Leather is the time, is the place, is the motion. Now leather is the way we are feeling.”

Derek had discovered then and there that one, Stiles could not sing, and two, he needed to watch Grease in order to set the lyrics right, because that was simply ridiculous.

He had ensured the architect that they were both grown adults and serious people with money and she had rolled out plans of big houses with garages and numerous bedrooms and bathrooms and swimming pools and Stiles had asked how many swimming pools one house could fit.

“That depends”, had been the answer, and Derek had zoned out for a while.

On one of those nights, where they were trying to solve the case of the sleepwalkers, Stiles has parked his Jeep close to where that one man fell into the hole, and he is trying to quietly eat his snacks while Derek is watching the forest with his night vision.

It is quiet. There are no noises but the occasional rustling of some animal, or the hoots of an owl, but otherwise it is completely silent.

Stiles is fingering in the package of Pringles for another one. It breaks in half and makes a little cracking sound. Derek twitches.

“Dude”, Stiles whispers.

“Don’t call me dude”, Derek retorts, and after a thought adds, “and stop eating snacks.”

“You’re way too twitchy, sourwolf. What happened? Are you nervous?”

“I’m not nervous”, Derek replies, but flinches when he hears a noise. He turns his head in the darkness and watches the space between to trees. Seconds later, a weasel rushes past. Derek does not relax.

“Are you scared?”

“I’m not scared.”

“Is it the touch-starved thing again? Do you need more pack-piles? Some dog cuddles? Do you wanna lick my neck again and sniff my armpits?”

“I did not lick your neck!”, Derek exclaims, whipping his head around. He can see Stiles smirking in the dark and thanks whoever for the fact that the other man is not a werewolf and cannot see his face reddening.

“It’s okay. Wait. I got this”, Stiles answers unperturbed and twists in his seat in order to put his crisps on the backseat of the Jeep. Once he has ridden himself of the snacks, he, mortifyingly, starts to climb over onto the seat, where Derek sits.

“What are you doing?”, Derek whisper-shouts as he suddenly has a lap full of Stiles, who twists way too much for his liking, before turning around and stretching his legs out over the driver seat, while his ass is firmly planted in the werewolf’s lap. Derek has helplessly raised his arms in the air, and Stiles takes this as a chance to put his arms around Derek’s middle, hugging him, and putting his head on the werewolf’s shoulder.

“Psshht, let’s give you some cuddles, or else you’re gonna flinch yourself to death, mister twitchy ears, I swear, I could already see your eyebrows disappear and how will you ever learn to communicate without them.”

They sit there. Frozen. Stiles hugging Derek like a life-west and Derek contemplating all the choices he has made in his short life.

He decides, they were good choices and lets his hands settle on Stile’s back, hugging him, too.

It is silent and the scent of Stiles in his nose calms Derek so much that he is afraid he will fall asleep if nothing happens soon. He tries to focus on every small little noise he can make out, but luckily- no hatefully, awfully, there is suddenly a loud crack, another one and then he identifies the noises as footsteps and then there is a woman in a white nightgown, walking through the woods like they are in a dream.

“Stiles”, Derek whispers urgently.

The woman walks past the car, feet bare and probably pretty dirty if not even bloody. Her eyes are half open but unseeing, and she is walking as if in a trance. In her arms she is holding a container, which looks like

“Is that a bucket of chicken wings?”, Stiles wonders in amazement. He has lifted his head from Derek’s shoulder and is watching the woman as well. When they notice that she is directly approaching the hole in the ground, he clambers back into his seat, reaching for the car door. They are both halfway out of the car, but the woman does not fall into the hole.

She stops only about a foot before the hole, makes a step to the right and walks right past it, as if she has seen it. But then she continues to walk with abandon, through bushes and leaves and over stones and it sounds anything else but a comfortable walk.

As quietly as possible, Derek and Stiles leave the car and start to follow the woman on her path through the forest.

*

“Kid?”, the Sheriff asks, when Stiles calls him in the middle of the night. He has a nightshift and is still at the precinct, so Stiles does not feel bad about calling him this late.

“Hi, daddio, we solved the case. About the sleepwalkers?”

“Oh? Where are you right now?

“In the forest. We found another woman who was sleepwalking.” He pulls the passenger door open with his left hand, the right one holding the phone to his ear, and directs Derek to put the woman into the Jeep. Derek is carrying the passed-out woman bridal style and carefully places her inside, putting the feet in first.

“What woman? Who is it?”

“I don’t know her, middle-aged, straight brown hair… I guess. She’s still asleep, so, we’ll bring her to the station, alright?”

Derek throws a glance at the woman as she slightly turns her head, but she is still deeply asleep. He really hopes she will not wake up to being in a stranger’s car in the middle of the woods at night. The way the pixies had chosen their victims had really been randomly. At day, they had flown around town, inside wherever a door or window was left open, to check out the state of the kitchen.

“Alright? Is there anything dangerous out there?”, Stiles’ father asks.

The pixies’ doing had been relatively harmless. Mostly harmless if they had thought of making their victims put shoes on before walking into the forest, and possibly falling into holes.

Their hive had shrunken considerably after fights with other mythical creatures. Their own hive had not been welcomed in the area, as they originally came from England, but accidently traveled her by ship and were now unused to the local mythical creatures, and when their queen had gotten sick, all the pixies had been put on guard or medic care duty, and not enough had been left to hunt for food. Instead, they had in the day sought out various people with a lot of food in their fridge, hypnotized them, and called them to bring the food to the hive in the darkness of the night. They had tried to be careful. After that one man had fallen in the hole, they had worked out how to move the persons around that obstacle. The victims never even mentioned or noticed that they were missing any food, so, Derek and Stiles had not thought it was too bad or that they had to kill the pixies. Instead, they promised to come by again, bring some healthy food option for their queen, and had left them with a warning.

“Nah, we got it handled”, Stiles tells his dad. “I’ll tell you more when we’re there.”

“Okay. Drive save.”

“Sure will, daddio.”

Stiles puts his phone away, and swings himself behind the steering wheel. Derek puts his hand in the open driver window, checking the state of the sleeping woman.

“You good to go?”, he asks.

“You good to run?”, Stiles retorts with a smirk.

“I’ll track you to the station.”

“Good job, Lassie, you found Jimmy in the well. Let’s go get you a treat.”

“It’s Timmy.”

“Wow, you’ve got an extensive knowledge on popular dogs, don’t you?”

“I hate you.”

“Liar”, Stiles laughs, and starts his car. He pulls it around and drives the road back out of the forest. Derek waits for a few seconds, letting Stiles have a head start, before he drills his heels in the forest ground and speeds after the disappearing car.

It is an easy task for Derek to keep up with the car, especially since Stiles does not try to outrun him. They arrive at the station at around the same time, but Derek slows down already a while before that, trying not to draw any attention to himself. He approaches the Jeep and immediately holds the car door open for the strange – and now very awake – woman to fall out and into his arms. She is screaming and flailing, looking up at him in fear.

“Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you”, he hurries to say.

The woman screams and tries to run away.

“We found you sleepwalking in the forest! We brought you to the police station!”, he cries, but the woman is hitting at his arms, trying to run, but only running against Stiles, who is coming around the parked Jeep. As the woman falls into his arms, she looks up and immediately stops.

“Aren’t you that weird Sheriff’s kid?”

“Well, yes, thank you, I’m an adult man, though.”

He helps the woman up, just as the Sheriff himself comes out on the parking lot. He looks at Derek and Stiles, and the woman between them with a face that says a lot about what he has come to expect when meeting his son in the middle of the night. This probably has not been the strangest situation they had been in. Derek just does not remember anything else.

“Kid. Derek”, John Stilinski greets them, “Thank you for informing me you found another sleepwalker in the woods. Ma’am, I’m sorry about the scare, but I assure you, you were in good hands. If you please follow me inside, then we can find someone to take you home safely.”

The woman nods, visibly still confused about what had happened. But she lets Stiles help her up, and follows the Sheriff into the station. Derek and Stiles wait back by the car until the Sheriff comes back out to ask them about what had happened. Stiles gives him the details, the Sheriff sighs, asks if there is any action to be taken, and Stiles tells him about their plans of feeding the pixies.

“What are they doing in California anyway? Bit far away from England?”

“Well, according to the Bestiary, pixies have first been discovered already decades ago in the States, first on the East coast, but then they basically spread like glitter on a children’s birthday party all over the country”, Stiles mimics a bomb going off, the twitchy movements he makes afterwards with his fingers should probably indicate the glitter.

“Fucking pixies”, John huffs.

“Language!”, Stiles exclaims.

“Watch yourself”, the Sheriff warns, pointing his finger at his son, but Stiles only smiles, and the sheriffs pats him on the shoulder. “Well done, son. Go home now, I’ll see you both, tomorrow.”

“Sure will, stay safe, daddio. Come on, Lassie.”

“I hate you”, Derek calls again, but without anyone believing he really means it.

*

The architect had affirmed that she would take all their wishes into account and come up with a possible plan for the new house. So, while they waited for their next meeting, they developed a new routine. Each day they take a walk or drive into the forest to bring the pixies fresh food, and to keep the peace. They go shopping, divide the housework between each other, cook or go out to eat, and spend a lot of time on sitting somewhere in the field next to the construction side, where they had taken down the old house, and ruminating about how they want to rebuild it.

They set up a table near the construction site, where Stiles can doodle plans of layouts for the house. He daydreams about jacuzzies and bathrooms for every single bedroom. When Derek questions why he would need more than one bedroom in the first place, Stiles promises to find so many friends and pack members for him, he will need a palace to house them all.

“And also, where am I supposed to sleep, when I stay over?”

“You can sleep in the jacuzzi, no one is going to take it from you.”

“Jackass.” 

Suddenly, Stiles’ phone, which is lying on the table beneath some papers, starts ringing. When Stiles uncovers it, it shows the picture of a man Stiles’ age and the name “Scott”. Stiles takes the call.

“Scott, my man, how are you?”

Derek tries to look like he is not listening, but at the same time, he is indeed very much listening in order to find out more about this best friend of Stiles.

“Stiles, mum told me Derek is back? And he lost his memory?”, the voice in the speaker asks, clear disapproval in his voice.

“Oh, yeah, he is back in town. Arrived only a few days ago. He found my house through scent memory or something like that. You know, like a drug dog, sniffing out ol’ Stiles, even though, he’s lost his memory. Don’t worry though. I immediately made him drink truth juice, and he is not possessed or anything, just a bit disorientated.” He grins at Derek while he is talking as if he knows exactly that the werewolf is listening in.

“What does he want from you? Mum said you were out shopping together?” He sounds incredulous.

“Buying him some clothes, of course, he didn’t bring anything with him.”

“Do you hear yourself? Going shopping with Derek Hale?”

“It was really fun, actually. Just try to imagine him without his memory. A lot less baggage.” Stiles puts emphasis on ‘a lot’ and Derek tries to figure out how he feels about that. At bit hurt, he supposes, at the implication that he had not been fun before.

“So, he’s your new little project, or what? You help him now, and once he remembers he’ll push you around again and probably leave for good. He’s never been a good person, not even a good alpha! Why do you want to waste your time on helping him?”

Derek cannot deny, he is hurt. Hurt by hearing a person he does not remember talking about him like that, and also the fear that everything he says might be right. Suddenly, he regrets never having asked Stiles about their relationship. He had stupidly thought, he could have a completely new start, establishing a new relationship with Stiles, finding a place to live, finding a purpose, maybe hobbies or a job. But even if he wanted to start anew, he could not ask the same of Stiles. Maybe he had bullied Stiles, even terrorized him. Although, maybe he would not be helping him now if that had been the case…

“Don’t talk like that. He is sitting right next to me, and can probably hear you”, Stiles admonishes his friend. “Also, you are really unfair now! Everyone deserves a second chance, and the man just lost his memory! You can’t expect me of to leave him on his own like that.”

Well, that just makes Derek feel like a dog whose owners went on vacation without him.

“What? Why is he with you right now? Where are you?” Scott ignores the rest of what Stiles had said.

“Oh, Scotti-boy, what are you thinking? We’re in the Preserve, where the old Hale house was before we knocked it down. I’m planning where we’ll put the jacuzzi once we pull up the new house. What do you think about an indoor pool? Or like, one of these really fancy pools on the roof?”

“Why are you so fixated on pools?”, Derek asks him quietly as not to disrupt the phone call. Stiles swats at his shoulder and puts the phone to his other ear. On the other side of the line, Scott is sputtering.

“You took down the old Hale house?”, he exclaims. “And you’re moving in together?”

“Oh, oh, Scotty, Scotty”, Stiles laughs. “We’re not moving in together. I’m just helping Derek to make a new start in life, you know, after he lost all his memories. That reminds me, it’s almost time for lunch, and I still need to order the pizza. It was nice talking to you. I’ll text you again, if something comes up, say hi to Kira, bye!”

He hangs up before Scott can get another word in. Then he pulls up the number of the pizza place. While he orders, Derek watches him circling a pencil between his fingers, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs, when he starts balancing on two chair-legs, Derek cannot help but imagine him falling on his ass more than once for this stunt

Stiles glances at Derek while he is listing the order, honey-brown eyes shadowed by his long eyelashes. Derek really loves watching him.

“Why did you kill the phone call like that?”, Derek asks, once Stiles has put his phone down.

“What? I just said ‘thanks, have a good day’? Do you think that wasn’t nice enough for a pizza order conversation? Should I have wished her a good weekend, too?”, Stiles asks innocently.

Derek gives him a look.

“I can see what you’re doing with your eyebrows there, sourwolf.”

“Stiles.”

“Look, I love Scotty, but you and him were always at each other’s throats. I really don’t need him accusing you of things you have no memory of. That’s not what a fresh start is about.”

Derek looks at his own hands in his lap. He weighs the pros and cons of starting a conversation about his old life, and to be honest, the cons totally outweigh the pros. Everything he has heard about himself so far does sound anything else but promising. He seems to have been an unreliable bully and the only light at the end of the tunnel is, that he had the wonky excuse of having had a sad life himself. Is that not exactly what Stiles does every time someone asks him why he is hanging out with Derek again? First, confirming that yes, Derek had been a dick and not very nice to be around, but second, that it was alright because he was pretty damaged from personal experience, which he, three, does not have anymore, and is therefore alright to be around?

“But isn’t he right accusing me of things I have actually done?”, he asks quietly, a bit against his will, having to force his tongue to move.

Stiles looks at him in surprise.

“What did you do? Do you remember?”

“No, I just, it’s not as if anyone has said anything nice about me, so, I just assume they must be right in hating me.”

“Dude! Don’t get like that! Sure, you’ve made some mistakes”, he starts and Derek already dreads hearing about all the reasons it is alright for him to be a douchebag, “but as I said, you and Scott were always at each other’s throats. And, no offence, but Scott is no angel either. He seriously fucked up a few times and I did as well and if we were all in our right mind, we could stand here and throw all kinds of accusations at each other’s heads, but why would I do that? I still have to show you like twenty different Marvel movies, not to mention DC and all the other good stuff, but that won’t be half the fun if I have to be pissed at you.”

“So, you just choose not to be angry at me?”, Derek questions, frowning.

“I already chose a long time ago, dude. Back when I was still losing people I liked about every other week, I decided that I don’t want to spend my life hating people that I rather watch movies with.” He taps the pencil on the table, staring off into the distance. “Back at university in Washington I really missed having people to talk about all that shit, you know? You seriously underestimate how lifting it is to just go up to someone and be like ‘fucking pixies, man’ and not have them mock you or think you’re misogynistic for hating on pixie dream girls or whatever. So, if it’s alright with you, I’m not gonna abandon you, for my own interest of having someone stuck in this sauce with me, alright?” At the end of his speech, there is a twinkle in the man’s eye, and he grins slightly. Madly. Widely. At Derek.

Derek grins back, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.

“Fucking pixies, man”, he mutters, and Stiles laughs.

*

“Are we dating? Or are we just pack mates?”, Stiles asks one day as they are sitting at the kitchen table, brooding over a game of scrabble.

Derek looks down at his letters in horror. They only spell nonsense. He looks up at Stiles, who is clearly trying not to look affected by this change in topic. He had just been monologuing about the structural dynamics in lion prides, and honestly Derek should have seen this coming.

“I don’t know”, he answers honestly.

Stiles looks at him sharply.

“So, you’re not, like, opposed to dating me.”

It is really more of a statement than a question, and Derek does nothing to deny it. He swallows, nods barely noticeable. Stiles still notices.

“Well, that’s neat.”

Derek does not reply.

For a few horrifying seconds neither says anything, before, of course, Stiles breaks the silence.

“Derek?”, he probs. “Do you want to go out with me? Because, if yes, I’m gonna be honest, I’d totally be up for that. I’d totally be all over that.” He gestures at Derek, and the werewolf can only blush. “But I also get if you wanna keep going like we did, because hugging and scenting is fine for pack mates as well. I’m fine with that. I wouldn’t pressure you into something, you don’t”

“Stiles?”, Derek interrupts.

Stiles licks his lip.

“Yeah?”

“Can- can I kiss you?”

“I don’t know Derek. Can you?”, he replies. Derek would have been discouraged by that, but he can see the spark in Stiles’ eye, and he can smell the arousal all around them, and he is sure he is not misreading things.

So, cautiously, he gets up and walks around the table. He looks down at Stiles, who is still sitting down and now raising an expectant eyebrow. Derek frowns.

Should he kneel down, or?

Instead, he leans down, cupping Stiles’ face with both his hands and softly touches his lips to Stiles’. He feels Stiles’ hands coming up to grasp the back of his head, tangling in his short dark hair. He feels his breath ghost over his nose and there are so many sensations. Licking over Stiles’ lips and into his mouth, he tastes him, swallows every little moan Stiles makes. They are really not so much kissing anymore as trying to devour each other.

Forget about walking before running. They moved in together before they got to know each other. It was like that in Derek’s case, anyway.

“Wanna go up to my room in case my dad comes home early?”, Stiles pants as they both resurface for air. “I mean, we could totally stay here and break the news to him as crudely as possible, but after torturing him with a vegetarian diet for months on ends, I’d rather not risk putting any damage to his heart, which will probably happen when he walks in on us and, wait where- oh, yeah, that’s more like it, lead the way, Lassie!”, he exclaims as Derek pulls him out of the chair and up the stairs to the bedroom.

They stumble into the room, closing the door behind them. Derek is not sure on how to proceed, but Stiles is eager to tear at his hand, his shirt, and as he flops down on the bed, he forces Derek down on top of him. Holding himself up on his hands, he stares down at the younger man. His gaze flies over all his features, his honey-brown eyes, the freckles, the wet, reddened lips.

The werewolf inhales deeply, taking in the scent of arousal, a spicy, heated scent which his wolf almost starts howling over. Stiles’ cheeks turn red and he grins up at him giddily.

“I’m trying really hard right now not to make an inappropriate joke, so, better kiss me and shut me up before I ruin the mood.”

“You’re not ruining anything.”

“What a sap.” He reaches for Derek, pulling him down. They kiss again, or, make out really. Derek nips at his bottom lip, taking it between his teeth and pulling softly. Stiles whines, letting his hands wander over Derek’s hair, shoulders down his back until he is gripping is ass. Derek groans and buries his face in the other man’s neck. Stiles sucks at his neck in return, bites and trying his hardest to leave any kind or mark on the fast-healing werewolf skin. 

They are both hard, dicks straining against their jeans and Derek grinds down. Stiles is bucking his hips up, eager to get friction. The sense of sweat, cinnamon and forest is so intense in the crook of Stiles’ neck that Derek has to drag his nose up and down, scenting him. He shudders, breathing against Stiles, who bristles at the cold huff of air.

Derek has to keep still for a bit, while Stiles rubs up and down his back, then he takes his head in hands and makes him look into his face.

“You alright, sourwolf?”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever done this before”, Derek confesses, looking away in slight embarrassment. Stiles looks a bit surprised, rubbing circles over Derek’s cheeks with his thumbs.

“We can stop, if you want.”

“No, I”, Derek hesitates, “I want this. It’s just strange, feeling like this is the first time, but knowing, guessing”, he fixes Stiles with a look, “it probably isn’t.”

“Probably not”, Stiles says. “I mean, maybe it’s the first time with another dude. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with a man, didn’t even know you swing that way until now. Even with the pack piles I didn’t think anything of it, just that you like cuddling, so… you know? Maybe it is a first time of sorts.”

“It doesn’t matter”, Derek replies. “I’m here with you now.”

“Awesome sauce”, Stiles says and nudges at Derek side to make him roll over. Derek complies, rolling on his back and letting Stiles climb on top of him. Stiles settles directly on Derek’s crotch, feeling up his abs with his hands, and grinding against him. Derek groans, gripping the younger man’s muscled upper legs.

Stiles must decide they are still wearing way too many clothes and pulls his shirt up over his head. Derek hastily follows with his own, and Stiles uses this chance to roam with his hands all over the werewolf’s chest, trailing down and bending over to lick at his heated skin. Derek feels his wolf whine at the feeling, but only allows himself to groan and growl deeply.

When Stiles begins to open his jeans, Derek swallows hard.

“I’m gonna suck your brain out through your dick”, Stiles declares and Derek chokes on air. Stiles moves away from Derek, but only to pull his jeans down, then his briefs, making his hard dick stand at attention. He settles between Derek’s legs, nudging them further apart before bending down and dragging his tongue up Derek's dick in a long, slow lick.

“Oh, fuck”, Derek groans, and lets himself fall back against the pillow on top of the bed.

Stiles cannot even keep from talking when he is literally sucking a dick, and instead pants unconnected phrases between licking and sucking and playing with his balls. Most of it, Derek cannot understand, only making out slurred sounds and vibrations against his sensitive skin. He only stops talking when he takes the head between his lips, slowly moving up and down. He hums low in his throat, and Derek can feel the orgasm build already. He cannot tear his eyes away from the flutter of Stiles' eyelashes as he bobs his head up and down Derek’s length, the furrow of concentration between his brows.

“Stiles”, he pants and just in that moment, Stiles pulls off with a wet pop. He grins at the werewolf.

“Why did you stop?”, Derek groans, confusedly.

“Can I- sorry, may I put my dick in you?”

“Stiles”, Derek groans again and buries his face in the pillow. “Just- do whatever.”

Stiles laughs and crawls up over Derek until he can slant his mouth down over his. He is still wearing his jeans and the rough fabric rubs against Derek’s still straining wet dick, the cool air making it twitch. Derek returns the sloppy kiss, sucking at Stiles’ tongue and slipping his hands into Stiles’ trousers inside his boxer shorts, giving his ass a quick squeeze.

“You should take these off.”

“Sure, sure. Hey, that makes me think, how about next time we do this, we’ll get some leathery attire? Like, leather trousers, and I could wear them and you could peel them off me like a banana”, he gets off of Derek to wiggle out of his jeans, anything but graceful and chucks them aside without any care. “Get it? Banana?”

“I get it, I get it”, Derek assures him, grabbing for him, but Stiles directs him to turn over and lie on his stomach.

“Come on, roll over”, He reaches over to his nightstand and pulls the drawer out. He grabs a bottle of lube. Then he again moves between Derek’s legs, roaming with his hands over his naked back, “Show me your downward dog. I need to scent you now as well. Give you a massage with a happy ending. Give you a sex ed session with my own banana.” He parts the older man’s cheeks, pouring copious amounts of lube over his fingers and Derek’s hole. Derek groans both at the sensation, but also in a not so sexy way as an answer to Stiles’ babbling.

As the first finger breaches his hole, Derek fists the bedsheets with his hands and moans into the mattress. He can feel Stiles probing at his entrance, slowly, carefully opening him up. The finger slides deeper, hitting that certain spot and Derek’s breath hitches, making his dick strain against the sheets. Stiles adds another finger, and another, until he is loose enough, and all through, Stiles keeps talking. It’s a weird mix of dirty talk, shit talking and utter nonsense and Derek feels like he is zoning out of the conversation from time to time, but only offers moans and low rumbling in his throat, anyway.

“Think you’re ready for the main course?”, Stiles teases and Derek nods vaguely.

“Should I turn some music on? Set the mood and all that? What do you say to some Jazz?”

Derek only growls, turning his head to glare at Stiles.

“So, that’s a no?” Stiles asks, clearly having to keep from laughing.

“I hate you”, Derek says.

Now, Stiles really laughs. He stops though, when he takes his dick in hand, as well as the bottle of lube to slick himself up. He hesitates, looks at Derek.

“You fine without a condom? I think I have some… somewhere, not sure though, where.”

Derek waves his hand, making him stop, just wanting to make him stop and continue.

“It’s fine. Werewolf. No diseases. Just- go on.” He takes a breath that hitches when the tip of Stiles' cock touches his hole, slick with lube, almost pressing inside. It does not hurt, only burn deliciously and Derek feels himself moving back against the younger man, speeding up the process until Stiles is entirely inside him.

Stiles is bend over him, rubbing soothing circles into his skin, licking and nipping at it. Derek imagines he is leaving marks, even though, he knows they will not take.

“Pity, I can’t mark you up as mine”, Stiles mutters as if he had the same thought. Derek growls lowly.

“What was that? You wouldn’t like it?”, Stiles asks.

“I do”, Derek groans into the mattress. He does not need to see Stiles to know he is grinning very smugly.

“Well, don’t worry. I’m gonna mark you up in another way.” He starts to shift then, giving a few short, experimental thrusts. Derek moans.

He revels in the feeling of fulness, the brushing over his prostrate. He is panting and shakily moving onto his elbows. Stiles is rocking against him, trusting in deep and picking up his pace. Derek feels his arms shaking and knows his dick is absolutely soiling the bed sheets. He tries to shift his weight so he can take himself in hand, but instead, Stiles is bending over and grips his weeping dick. He moves up and down and jerks him sloppily while fucking into him relentlessly. Every time he hits his prostrate, a tingle rushes up Derek’s spine and he sees stars.

“Oh, fuck, Derek! You feel so good, so good for me- ngh”, Stiles pants, then groans as Derek tightens around him. Derek bites his lip to keep from saying anything embarrassing. Instead, he pushes back against Stiles, arching into him until it is too much, the sensation of it all.

He loves Stiles.

The scent of him, the way he always talks with his whole body, all his talking, and the way he can trust him, and how he feels being around Stiles.

“Derek, ah”

Derek comes all over Stiles’ hand and the sheets, and he feels a bit like he is going to black out. He has to take the weight off his shaking arms, lowering himself onto the mattress as Stiles is still fucking into him, thrusting hard into his sensitive hole. Panting hard Derek takes it until he feels Stiles’ hips stutter against him, his body shudders as he comes, filling Derek with his release.

Stiles collapses onto Derek, a heavy, warm weight on top of him.

“Oh my god, that was amazing. Seriously we should have done this way before already, though, I guess, there needs to be the right moment or whatever, I take it back, I regret nothing, this was perfect. Derek? Was it good for you?”

Derek grunts.

“Come on, you gotta give me something more than that. You gotta communicate with me.”

“It was good.”

Stiles lifts himself off Derek, carefully pulling out. Still, they both hiss at how sensitive their skin is right now. Then he lies down next do Derek, searching for his eyes.

“I’m glad”, he says.

Derek frowns at him.

Stiles raises his hand to brush his thumb over Derek’s eyebrows. His movements are slow and lazy. Feeling him caress his face makes Derek sleepy, still he holds his eyes open.

“You mean a lot to me, Derek”, Stiles whispers. Derek hesitates, then he turns to his side, flinching at the sudden movement and how sore he feels, then reaches out for Stiles. Stiles realizes what he wants, looks around and locates the blanket that is bunched up at the bottom of the bed. He pulls it over them and Derek pulls him into him, holds him close. Stiles has his hands flat on Derek’s chest and they are lying face to face.

“You’re not gonna use your words?”

“No.”

“That’s fine. I’m fluent in eyebrow.”

Derek rolls his eyes, but nuzzles into Stiles, anyway.

“We’re going to be gross as hell tomorrow”, Stiles informs him, but Derek only huffs. He inhales the scent of them both combined and revels in the new closeness. Stiles lays his head down on the pillow, watching him with hooded eyes, until they gradually become heavier, and they both sink into sleep.

*

Derek jerks awake.

It is still dark in the room and he is drenched in sweat. He looks around wildly, trying to remember where he is, when he recognizes Stiles’ bedroom. Bits and pieces about the last evening come back to him and he notices the sore feeling, the dried semen on him. He rubs a hand over his face. Now, he is taking in Stiles’ scent, Stiles’ presence next to him, Stiles’- Stiles. Stiles is rubbing a hand over his back, sitting next to him and looking very tired.

“Nightmare?”, he asks.

Derek licks his lip.

“I, yeah, yeah”

“What about?”

Derek tries to remember and finds it is all there. It is a surprise to him that he is able to remember his dream. He knows he has dreamt before, but once he wakes up, every piece of dream seems to disappear immediately. Still, this night’s dream is vibrantly burnt in his brain and it makes his heart studder to think about it.

“I dreamt about being paralyzed. You were with me and we were running away from something. I- we were next to a pool and I fell inside. You, you came after me and held me up in the water”, he forces out. He hears Stiles’ heart stutter and he turns to look at him. Stiles’ eyes are wide.

“Derek, that really happened.”

Derek frowns.

“Do you remember? The first time we met after you lost your memory? I asked you how I first saved your life and that was it. You were paralyzed by a Kanima and I had to get you out of there, but you fell into the pool at Beacon High and I had to tread water all night to keep you afloat.”

“That happened?”

“Yeah, I tell you! Dude, do you know what that means? You remember!”

“Don’t call me dude after we had sex.”

“Don’t distract from the topic here!” Stiles puts a hand to Derek’s face. “Do you know what that means? It could mean that you’ll get all of your memories back eventually. Derek, this is serious. You weren’t doing well with those memories before and I’m afraid what will happen if you get them all back all of a sudden. You need to talk about your problems eventually. I really think, you should see someone, like a therapist, not like a ghost. I’m not asking you to suddenly start seeing apparitions. That’s actually the opposite of what I want to happen to you. No mental breakdowns, sourwolf, no matter how much you think you can be a lonewolf forever, alright? Do you get me?”

“Yeah, I- I’ll think about it.”

“Promise me, Derek”, Stiles insists, turning his face so Derek has to look him in the eye. He seems really serious about this and Derek can only nod.

“I promise.”

“Alright.” Stiles starts stroking his back again, massaging his shoulders and eventually pulls him down on top of him. “Come on. Let’s try to get some more sleep.” He drags the blanket over them, and Derek puts his cheek over Stiles’ heart, listens to its steady and calm beating. He does not think he will sleep again after this, but drifts off before he can even notice.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'd be happy to read your comments!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooone new chapter!
> 
> I hope it's still on time for Christmas ^^

“She even knows about the supernatural. The therapist I went to at university recommended her to me. It’ll be fine. I’m sure. You don’t even have to say anything in the first session. Just sit there and look growly. Okay? What do you think?”

“I think that’s a stupid idea.”

Stiles throws him an unimpressed look. They sit in the parked Jeep just before the building in which the perfect therapist for Derek is supposed to have her office. Derek tries to ignore Stiles as best as he can. Stiles taps the stirring wheel.

“I get it, okay. Being weird and having problems isn’t cool. But it can really help you with some of your issues. Try it, at least, will you?”

Derek sighs, but nods.

“Third floor, fifth door. Should I come up with you?”

“No.”

Before Stiles can protest, he gets out of the car and slams the door behind him, but gently, to not destroy the Jeep with one blow. Stiles calls after him that he will pick him up in about an hour when his appointment ends, and Derek enters the building.

Dr. Sinclair exudes a calming aura, with her graying brown hair, her clunky jewelry and the elegant glasses on her nose. Her office is small, but comfortable, open windows through which street noises rise up from the streets down below. Natural sunlight streams over the two comfortable armchairs in front of her work desk. She asks Derek to sit down where he feels comfortable, he sits down with his back against the wall next to the window. There is a big plant next to him. He does not know what kind.

Just like Stiles has suggested, does he not say much during the first lesson.

“What has Stiles told you?”, he asks her.

“Nothing. He only asked for an appointment for you. You also don’t need to worry that I’ll tell him anything of what we’ll discuss here. This is all confidential.”

Derek nods, and looks down at his hands.

“Do I have to talk?”

“If you want to.”

He thinks about it, then offers:

“I lost my memory.”

She makes a note.

“When was that?”

“Like, a few months ago, in the summer”, he replies, then he falls into deep thought over… he does not know what, but he does not feel like saying anything else. Instead, he sits here, stares out of the window, at Dr. Sinclair, at the plant. Dr. Sinclair reminds him that this is alright and that he can start speaking whenever he is ready. Once the hour is over, she asks him whether or not he would like to meet again, and Derek forces himself to say yes.

She gives him a new appointment the next week and gets up to shake his hand. He leaves her office in a bit of a daze. Stiles is waiting for him outside, just like he promised.

“I’m proud of you”, he tells him, when he gets in the car, and kisses him. The kiss is short and sweet and soon after, he is starting the car. “I did the groceries meanwhile. We’re making veggie burgers for lunch, how about it?”

Derek is unbelievably thankful to him that he is not forced to talk about it already. Instead, he is allowed to sit there and listen as Stiles launches into a comparison between the veggie patties from various stores and which taste the most like meat, so, he might be able to trick his dad into becoming a vegetarian in the name of health and low blood pressure without even noticing it.

“There’re even vegetarian sausages now. If they manage to actually make them taste like real meat, we’ll never have to feed him real meat again and he’ll never have to know!”

*

Eventually, the days become shorter.

It had taken numerous meetings with the architect to come up with a house plan Stiles was satisfied with. Derek had been a bit worried about staying in their house for so long, keeping most of his stuff in the guest room, but spending all the nights in Stiles’, but those worries had eventually dissolved as John had started leaving him with additions for the shopping list, inviting him to watch sports in the evenings, or asking him to go mow the lawn. Derek had started feeling useful, like he was not just freeloading in their house.

Stiles has applied for a part time job as a deputy, still being mocked a bit for being the Sheriff’s kid, but otherwise seeming happy in his job. Derek thought, he himself had enough to do with overseeing the construction site that eventually morphed from an empty space into the first signs of a new living space.

He went to the Preserve daily, talking with the construction workers, sometimes bringing treats. Eventually he had asked what they were doing exactly, and they had shown him, and he had tried it, and when Stiles had come home from work hours later, Derek had not been home yet. So, he had come to the Preserve as well, leaning against the Jeep and watching Derek help building the foundation of his future house.

“You like working in construction?”, he asks later as they lie tangled in Stiles’ bed. Derek has his face buried in the other’s throat, inhaling the calming scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, popcorn, forest, dust and sweat, and still, magic. Only Derek had taken a quick shower after sweating heavily, but Stiles still smelled of his work day and the cooking earlier.

“It’s relaxing”, Derek answers, brushing Stiles’ skin with his lips.

“I never really knew what you wanted to do with your life. If you wanted to find a job or study, or if you had any goals. It was all just… running for our lives all the time.”

“Why isn’t it anymore?”

“The nemeton”, Stiles murmurs. “Do you know what that is? Fucking creepy tree. There’s a nemeton in Beacon Hills, out in the forest. It drew dangerous mythical creatures into town like crazy, but eventually we got it handled. Now, it’s… under control, calmer, almost sleeping. It’s still there, though, and we won’t destroy it, because having a nemeton can be a great thing, can lend great power and energy. It shouldn’t be pointlessly destroyed.”

“What kind of power?”

“Not sure. I’m not really interested in any power, like becoming some evil overlord, but I guess some are... It’s just that nemeton’s aren’t inherently evil. I don’t actually enjoy destroying supernatural life forms. Just because a few werewolves do evil, I don’t want to kill all the werewolves. Just because some humans do evil, I wouldn’t kill all humans, and it’s the same with the nemeton. If there’s a peaceful solution, I take it, and we can all go on living.”

Derek thinks about it, about Stiles and werewolves and nemetons and of what Stiles had told him about his own involvement in all things supernatural. Even if he has a best mate turned werewolf, Stiles still is surprisingly invested in all of this, and maybe that is because he is not all that human himself. Derek inhales the scent, the faint traces of magic.

“Stiles? Are you human?”

“Hm? What? Oh, yeah, why are you asking?”

“You smell like magic.”

“Why, thank you, Derek, how very cheesy and romantic of you.”

“I didn’t-“, Derek retorts, blushing, “Stiles. You know what I mean, right?”

“Yeah. I do. It’s my spark. Probably. Back when I was in high school, Dr. Deaton, he’s the vet in Beacon Hills, and also an emissary, he told me that I have a spark or that I’m a spark. That I have the potential to use magic and become an emissary myself. After that, I did a lot of research, and when I was away for my studies, I met with other emissaries, went into training.” He fumbles with the fabric of Derek’s shirt. “I always thought that I would return some day, that you would return, or Scott, and Beacon Hills would have an Alpha again and a pack, and that they would need an emissary, and I could be like ‘look at me, I can do magic’ and we could have fun adventures this time, where we’re all older and smarter and better prepared and less people need to die. Not that anything’s more fun, when you’re an adult. You’re too tall to fit properly into the slings on playgrounds and can’t do laser tag birthday parties anymore, not that I ever had enough friends to do that, anyway, but yeah…” He turns his head slightly to glance at Derek’s face.

Derek knows exactly what he is thinking about.

“We can go and play laser tag if you want.”

“If anyone ever tells you that you’re an awful person, tell them that, quote, Stiles said I’m the best, unquote, because you’re the best.”

Derek is quite sure that Stiles is mocking him, so he gives him a death glare and then starts to tickle him. Stiles immediately starts to trash around, kicking widely into the air and threatening Derek’s life, if he does not stop at once. Derek does. Eventually. After Stiles’ heart has started to leap like a rabbit’s and now, he is quietly tracking Stiles’ breathing, watching his flushed face and opened mouth.

“You’re, quote, a shitty loserwolf and I want you to know it, unquote”, Stiles tells him.

Derek thinks about what Stiles has said before, about wanting to belong to a pack.

“I don’t think I’m an alpha. Most likely I’m an omega”, he tells Stiles softly, worried, that Stiles’ had not thought of that and will finally leave him when he realizes that.

“I think you can be an alpha. If you want to. You’ve been an alpha before, but you did not really want to or know how to, and it was quite frankly a disaster, but neither of us knew better. I bet you could be a better alpha, if you wanted to, if you would ask for help and cut yourself some slack. Though, if you don’t want to, that’s alright, too.”

“You think?”

“Yes, sourwolf. Wanna see a trick?”

Derek lifts an eyebrow, and Stiles raises his arm in the air above their faces, where Derek can see him twisting and making a snipping sound, and suddenly the room has gone dark, the lights turned off.

“What did you do?”

“Magic”, Stiles grins in the dark, still easily visible to Derek’s wolf eyes. The smell of magic is now clearer, more present, like a freshly lit candle. Derek leans over Stiles and kisses him.

*

After this, Derek notices how Stiles uses his spark for all kinds of everyday activities. The turning of lights by only snipping his fingers is a frequent occurrence, as is the turning on of the coffee machine through the same trick, or the changing of TV channels. Once, they were pouring over plans for the house and Derek forgot about his hot mug of coffee until it had turned cold. Stiles reaches for the mug, holds it between his hands until steam starts to rise. Whenever Stiles uses his spark, the magic in his scent gets a little more pronounced.

Derek’s wolf is both confused and delighted by this. On the one hand, it is not sure what to make of this newly encountered power, this kind of magic, but on the other hand it keens at the knowledge that their chosen pack mate is this strong and skilled.

In the end, Derek has to catch himself multiple times a day from staring like an idiot at Stiles for turning on the TV without getting up from the couch or something stupid like that.

*

One night, when Derek jolts up in bed, because he remembers finding his dead sister Laura, he realizes not to wake Stiles. He quietly dislodges Stiles arm around him and slips out of the bed. In the bathroom he looks at himself in the mirror. The cold light seems to distort his features, buries his eyes deep in their sockets with purple bags beneath them. He looks pale and tired, and weirdly, he is surprised by that.

His life in the past few months had been way too good for him to look like this.

And now it is all coming back.

He has feared for a while already, that the explanation behind his dead family is not simply “a fire”, but combined with some horrible details and the memory of his sister’s death is another proof for him. Whichever memories he is still missing, he is scared to get them back.

He turns on the water faucet, splashing cold water in his face and tries to get rid of that sweaty feeling. Once he feels he can breathe again, he turns the lights off and silently climbs back into bed.

“Nightmare?”, Stiles mumbles as he turns to hug him and Derek stills for a second, cursing himself internally for not having been quiet enough.

“Yeah.”

“Another memory?”

“Yeah.”

Stiles does not reply anything else, instead weakly, sleepily pulling at Derek to come closer, so he can put his head on the werewolf’s chest, rubbing his cheek against his skin where it is still cool from the water he splashed on himself. Stiles bristles softly, hums and soon after, his breathing evens out again.

Derek lies awake for much longer, trying to gather as much thankfulness as he can. He feels he has to cherish this moment, because he has no assurance what he will do or what he will be like once all of his memories return.

*

The house is coming up beautifully. Mostly everything goes according to plan, even if it will take quite a few months. They had worked all through fall, with Derek learning how to build a house, and Stiles working as a deputy.

They eat together, most days.

When Stiles’ shift allows it, he gets food somewhere, sandwiches from home, pizza or something from the diner, and brings it to the construction site, where him and Derek sit in the grass, talking, eating. Often, he also brings some treats for the construction employees, some snacks, or sometimes beer for after work. They talk and go through the building process, the next steps and what still needs to be done.

Once, late in the evening when Stiles comes to get Derek, take him home in the Jeep, they wait until all the employees have left and Stiles walks the whole ground, around the property, mumbling something in Latin, and his skin prickling with magic, faintly glowing in the dark.

“What did you do?”, Derek questions, only afterwards.

“Pulling up some wards for protection. I’m finished now. I got a few sandwiches and stuff in the car to bring the pixies before we go home, alright?”

“Good thinking”, Derek says, because he has nothing else to say, and follows Stiles to the car.

Then, the last leaves fall, and even before that it begins to snow.

*

“Would you mind moving into my room completely, because soon will be Christmas and we might have some guests staying for a few days and we’d need the guestroom”, Stiles announces himself one day as he comes home from work, Derek working in the kitchen on preparing a lasagna.

“Huh?”

“Do you mind if we have guests over for Christmas?”

“No, of course not, I- who is coming?”

“Well, most of them probably won’t have time, or will celebrate with their own families. But Scott and Kira said they’d come back to Beacon Hills for the holidays and drop by once or twice. Also, I thought maybe we could invite Cora. Your sister?”

Derek stirs in the big pot, where he is cooking the vegetables and meat. It is not actual meat. They have discovered a vegan brand that makes meat alternatives for common dishes like lasagna and he is using the mix, so they can try and trick John into thinking he gets meat for dinner. Stiles thinks it was a waterproof plan, but Derek remains skeptical.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I’m not sure. Since you don’t want to know about your past, it might be a stupid idea, but I thought you might want to meet her, get to know her.”

Derek nods.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Maybe you could try and call her? That could be a start? Do you have her number?”

“I have it in my old mobile phone. I thought about giving her a call, but it… never seemed the right time.” He turns down the heat, and gets the glass dish from the cabinet. Then, he starts to assemble the individual layers of the lasagna.

“If you want, I could call her?”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“It makes it seem like I’m afraid to call her.”

“You are afraid to call her.”

“I’m not. It’s just not the right time.”

“Then when is the right time? It won’t get any easier you know? It’s just like that time my dad wanted me to bring down the plate with the last slice of pizza down from my room, but I forgot about it and I never ate it, because the cheese looked kind of weird and Scott and I had made up a story of how the cheese was probably made out of sawdust, bird shit and water, because he’d read somewhere that they use that to make cheaper pizza. We dared each other to eat it, but neither would, so it just lay there in my room and no one wanted to touch it and when my dad asked, I told him, I had already brought the plate down. But then I couldn’t do it anymore for real, because he’d notice the extra plate and the pizza in the trash and the longer I waited the more I forgot about it until there was all this white and green stuff growing on the pizza, and well, let’s just say my dad found out eventually.”

“Alright, Stiles! I’ll think about it!”, Derek snaps. He realizes he has gotten strangely annoyed by this story, not by the story itself, though, but because she knows Stiles is right. He has not forgotten about Cora, it is just not the right time, and… He puts the prepared lasagna in the oven, turning the heat on, and dumped the dirty dished in the sink. “The lasagna needs about 45 more minutes”, he says over his shoulder and storms out of the room.

He goes upstairs stairs, refusing to run away like a pouty teenager, into the guestroom, where the phone, that he had not used since he had found it, lies on the bedside table. He grabs it and pulls up the saved contacts.

“Cora” is the only contact in his phone. He had found it after cleaning out the Camaro, where it must have fallen under the seat. The battery had been empty, but he had borrowed a charger from Stiles and then put the charged phone aside after realizing there was basically nothing on it.

No pictures, no text messages, only a few missed calls from Cora weeks, well… now months back.

He stares at Cora’s contact information.

He has still enough time before he needs to get the lasagna out of the oven.

He presses the call-button.

After a few nerve-wrecking seconds, there is a cracking in the line and an unknown voice asks:

“Derek?”

“Cora?”, he asks, unsure of what to do next.

“Yes, it’s me, duh. How are you? Why didn’t you call earlier? I tried to call you a few times, but you never answered. Did you lose your phone, dummy?”

“No, yes, maybe I lost my phone, but I also lost my memory.”

There is silence on the other end of the line.

“What?”

“Cora, I lost my memory. I forgot everything. Who I am, who you are, my past, everything.”

“Do you know who I am?”, the voice asks hesitantly.

“My younger sister.”

“How- I mean, if you lost your memory…”

“Stiles. I found Stiles and he is helping me.”

“Stiles?”

“Do you know Stiles?”

“Yes, I, this is just weird. Do you realize you haven’t called me in about half a year! I was worried something’s happened to you, because honestly you don’t have the best track record! Why didn’t you call me sooner? How did you lose your memory? Tell me!”

Derek swallows, and then he tells her everything.

*

Once Derek puts the phone down, he feels drained. Physically. Emotionally. He had told Cora everything about him waking up without his memory, about finding Stiles, although, he had left out the part, where he has only found him because of his unbelievably good smell. He obviously had to tell her about staying with Stiles and the Sheriff, but he left out the part where him and Stiles seemed to be dating now. But he had taken up all his nerve and told her that he had taken the old Hale house down, and that they were building a new one.

Cora herself had mostly listened, commented, said, she does not mind that he has torn down their parents’ house, because she understands why he had done it, and she has not felt any emotional attachment to it for a long time.

A weight had been lifted from his shoulders upon hearing that.

“I don’t mind having no memories”, he had told her and after the deafening silence, he had added: “or… is this like an insulting thing to say.”

“No”, Cora had decided. “I understand. I won’t talk to you about the past if you don’t want to. We haven’t spent much time with each other anyway, and even then… we didn’t talk about our pasts much... I want to see you, though.”

And Derek had realized that he wanted to see her as well, get to meet his sister.

“Do you want to spend Christmas with us?”

More time has passed during their talk than he had anticipated. He looks at the watch on the wall, and jumps up at how late it was. He is halfway down the stairs before he realizes he cannot smell any burning lasagna, and sags in relief as he finds the lasagna in the middle of the dinner table, and Stiles taking the dishes out.

“Derek”, he says a bit wide-eyed, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed, I”

“It’s alright. I called Cora”, Derek interrupts him. Stiles looks at him in surprise. “We talked and I invited her to spend Christmas with us. She promised to check her plans and tell me in the next few days if she’ll be able to come so soon.”

Stiles smiles widely, eyes sparkling. He puts the dishes down, and goes to hug Derek. Derek hugs him back, holding him close and inhaling the faint smell of dish soap and tomato sauce clinging to Stiles’ usual scent.

“What did I miss?”, John asks as he enters the room and sits down at his usual place at the table. Derek quickly lets go of Stiles, and Stiles looks a little red in the face, around the eyes, and Derek notices that his eyes feel a little raw, too.

“Derek called his sister”, Stiles tells his father, looking at Derek for permission, and Derek nods faintly. “She might visit us over Christmas.”

*

“If we get a tree”, Stiles asks thoughtfully, “will you pee on it?”

Unfortunately, he does not ask this as they are at home, alone, sitting on the couch, or even at the dinner table with the Sheriff.

No.

He asks this question as they are walking through the parking lot in front of the supermarket where the Christmas trees are sold annually. Many bystanders are giving them confused or even displeased looks.

“Please excuse him, he has not taken his medication”, Derek tells the saleswoman, who looks like she is considering to take the tree he was looking at away from him.

“Not fair, I took my meds this morning”, Stiles protests, looks at the tree and says, “This tree reminds me of the one I ran into once, when I was hunted by some monster in the woods.”

“We’ll take it”, Derek decides in order to end this torture.

They pay for the tree and carry it back to the Jeep, while Stiles is cackling very much pleased with himself. After they have put the tree on the roof of the car, carefully putting a rugged old blanket around it, they drive back home, through the softly falling snow.

*

Christmas is a mess.

It begins already a few days before Christmas, actually. On the 23rd of December, they drive to the airport in order to pick Cora up, and Stiles made one of these ridiculous signs with her name on it and under it “WELCOME BACK TO HELL”, because as Derek understands, Cora has not left Beacon Hills on the best terms.

It only makes him more thankful to her that she is doing this for him, coming to visit.

He has dreaded her arrival, worrying about what pieces of his past she might bring with her and if she would find him very different from before. Weirdly, he even worries that he is not Derek after all, but an imposter that has nothing of his own, not even a dead family with only one remaining sister.

Stiles and him stand close to each other at the arrival gate, knocking shoulders against each other, and suddenly Stiles pats him on the arm and says:

“There she is! Black coat, blue suitcase, with the short brown hair, she must’ve cut it.”

Derek looks for her, but is surprised that he does not have to search, when he catches her scent. Again, it is nothing familiar, but at the same time a sense of familiarity. Notes that he shares with her, but also so many differences. She smiles when she sees him and fastens her walk. Her hair really is cut in a short asymmetrical bob, and she looks healthy, if only a bit tired out by the flight. She rushes past Stiles to hug him, and Derek hugs her back, feeling strangely relieved to have her back.

“Cora”, he whispers.

“I missed you, Der.”

They let go of each other and Cora turns to muster Stiles’ homemade sign. She huffs and slaps his shoulder.

“Good to see you, too. You’re taking care of my big bro?”

“I’m doing my best, although the potty training was real hard work”, Stiles jokes, putting the sign under his arm. Derek takes Cora’s suitcase instead of answering. He is used to Stiles’ jokes and lets Cora bicker with him. They bring her to the Jeep on the parking lot, Cora suggests they get some take away on their way home, Chinese, because she is starving. They get enough for the Sheriff, too, and return home.

“I’m gonna steal one of your spring rolls”, she warns him, once they sit around the kitchen table, eating dinner, and then she steals two at once. Derek is impressed.

“So, how’s Brazil? Are you part of a pack there? Have you been to the carnival?”, Stiles asks her, chewing. His father scolds him not to eat with a full mouth.

“Good. Yes. Yes. After I left Beacon Hills I returned to the pack that I stayed with after the fi-“, she interrupts herself, eying Derek. Derek draws his eyebrows together, mouth open, he tries to complete her sentence:

“…fire?”

Stiles shoves another bite of noodles into his mouth, obviously preventing himself from speaking. His father has buried his nose in his own paper box of noodles, glancing at the siblings over the top.

“You know about the fire?”, Cora asks.

“Yeah, Stiles mentioned it, but no specifics.”

“And you wanna keep it like that?”, she asks and he detects slight judgement in there. He can imagine why and he feels guilty. They have both been through the same bad backstory, he knows it had been sad the way Stiles sometimes looks at him like he is pitying him and then quickly smiles and looks away once Derek catches him.

Now Derek has forgotten everything about this sadness and is able to live free of it, of memories, and loss and, the missing, the nightmares and the survivor guilt. Cora is still shouldering life with all of that baggage, his little sister, and here Derek sits and asks her to keep it all to herself.

“I don’t miss my memories, and I don’t really want them back earlier than necessary, but… if that hurts you, if you want to talk about anything, I understand that and it is only fair if you want to share these memories with me.”

Cora bites into one of the stolen spring rolls, watching him intently.

“It’s fine. I have my pack to talk to, so, if you don’t want to, we can just continue with our sibling relationship, where we tease and annoy each other.”

She grins at him, and a stone drops from his heart.

“Oh god I wish I had a sibling, so I’d have another person to annoy”, Stiles says, never mind his mouth full of noodles.

“I also wish you’d had other people to annoy than me”, John mutters into his own noodles.

“I am very hurt by this statement.”

Cora finishes the second spring roll and puts her chop sticks down.

“Thanks for the food. I’m really tired, though. I’d like to lay down, I think.” Cora gets up and puts her empty paper box in the trash. Stiles swallows down what he has stuffed into his mouth while getting up. Derek also gets up, again taking Cora’s suitcase. He carries it upstairs while Stiles reminds her where the bathroom is, and next the guestroom. They had transferred Derek’s belongings into Stiles’ room, most of it had already been there anyway.

Cora takes the suitcase from Derek, opens it and searches for clothes to change into. They leave her to it and return downstairs. They finish eating, John excuses himself, they clean up, and go upstairs to get ready for bed, and through all of it, Stiles is mostly quiet, aside from telling Derek about his day, the new documentary on the manufacturing of cuckoo clocks that he wants to show him, about how lasagna is just organized spaghetti Bolognese, and everything between life, universe and the rest. When Derek catches Stiles again giving him this smug look, he asks:

“What?”

“I think it’s really good for you to have your sister here.”

Derek sits on the edge of the bed, pulling his jeans over his legs. He casually folds them and puts them on Stiles’ chair.

“Yes. I’m glad I can get to know her.”

He leans against the headboard of the bed, pulls the sheet over his legs and reaches for the book on the bedside table. Stiles smiles, continues talking about the documentary, but trails off to talk about the mating dance of the six-plumed bird of paradise. The joins Derek in bed, stealing a glance into Derek’s book, huffing, and muttering something about what a nerd he never knew Derek was.

*

It really is Stiles’ fault.

In the beginning, after Derek had lost his memory, he had still been jumpy from time to time, a light sleeper, waking up at every unknown noise. Then, after a while, Stiles had started with the casual touching, were he would just step up to the werewolf, rest a hand on his shoulder or ruffle through his hair, and Derek would stop listening for footsteps and instead relax into the awaited physical contact.

He had gotten used to hearing Stiles snip his fingers and a different noise going off somewhere else as a reaction to his magic.

They had started cuddling, falling asleep together, dating, and Derek would wake up in the middle of the night, because Stiles had a tiny bladder and was incapable of going to the bathroom and back without bumping into three different pieces of furniture. Eventually, Derek had stopped lying awake and listening for every little piece of noise. He would lie there, engulfed by the warmth and safety of Stiles’ embrace, frown in his sleep every time Stiles would get up and subconsciously melt back into him once he climbed into bed again.

Derek feels like he is safe in this house, which is all Stiles’ fault.

So, yeah, Stiles is the one to blame, when Derek wakes up the next morning, eyes looking blurrily into the light before the picture before him comes into focus, and it is Cora, leaning casually against the doorframe and watching Derek being he little spoon to Stiles’ bigger spoon.

“I really shouldn’t be surprised”, Cora says.

Derek can feel the even breath of Stiles brushing against the back of his neck, the weight of his arm slung over his middle and the way their legs are entangled in each other. The bed feels cozy and comfortable and he really does not want to get up, but Cora’s face is calm and neutral, and he sighs. Before Derek can feel the blush rise to his face, he lifts Stiles’ arm off him and gets out of bed.

Cora pushes herself off the doorframe and whirls around to go downstairs. Derek searches for some trousers, finds his joggers, pulls them on and follows her.

He finds Cora standing in the kitchen, making coffee.

“I could smell him all over you yesterday already, but I thought it might just be that you live together”, she says, “I’m a bit surprised, to be honest.” She turns around and only as Derek sees her face, he realizes, he had been worried she would be angry at him.

She is not.

If anything, she looks amused.

“I mean, I never knew you’re so needy. The little spoon, bro, seriously?”

“It’s comforting.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“So, what, you lose your memory, decide to start your life anew and the first thing you’re looking for is a boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Which, comes out horribly wrong. What Derek had meant to say is… well, nothing, he does not really want to talk about this. What he had meant, though, was that Stiles was way more important to him than even a boyfriend, but he did not really want to get into that right now.

“Looked a lot like boyfriends to me.” She smirks. “I admit I found Stiles annoying at first, but so are you, so I guess, it’s a perfect match. Have you asked his dad for permission yet?”

“Can we please not talk about this? It’s not what you think, it’s just-”

“Just what? Competing in the world championship for most sickeningly cute couple, because I totally regret having seen you cuddle after I already brushed my teeth. You probably gave me caries or diabetes or both.” When the coffee is done, she makes another cup for Derek, searching for milk in the fridge. There she finds the three spring rolls that had not been eaten the day before. “Sweet”, she mumbles and takes the plate out to eat them cold.

“There’s a microwave, you know.”

“Microwaving stuff only makes it worse. Now, spill. How did you and Stiles start to date even though you lost your memory. Was it like, in one of these romantic comedies, where you wake up in the hospital and think the first thing you see is your husband?”

“I don’t think there’s any romantic comedies like that. I think you confused that with newly hatched ducklings.”

“Why would ducklings think that anyone is their husband?”

“Not- not their- their mum- Cora”, he sounds rather exasperated. Cora cackles and sprays pieces of spring roll all over the kitchen floor. Derek tries to be annoyed, but all he feels is contentment for having his sister back again. Then she opens her mouth again and he wishes he was somewhere else.

“But seriously, when did you start dating?”

“It’s not like that.”

“But I saw you sleeping together.”

Derek frowns.

“It was just that. Sleeping”, he insists, because he rather has her thinking this is nothing than having to explain the whirlwind of feelings he has for Stiles. It is embarrassing enough as it is.

Cora rolls her eyes.

“If you say so.”

Then she dunks the remaining spring roll into her steaming coffee mug and Derek watches with eyebrows drawn together. They sit at the breakfast table in silence, sipping from their mugs, Cora eating the soaked spring roll, until Stiles finally comes sauntering down, demanding his own cup of coffee.

After breakfast, they carry the tree from the backyard into the living room. Stiles tells Derek where the old Christmas ornaments are and they set up the tree together. After they all decided that yes, it is standing straight, they start to decorate it with fairy lights and baubles, little figurines of angles, Santa Clauses, reindeers and so on.

“Close your eyes”, Stiles tells Derek.

“No.”

Stiles puts the fake reindeer antlers on his head anyway.

“Feel the reindeer, be the reindeer. Keep the antlers on all they and sing ‘Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer’ into the mirror this night and I promise, tomorrow you’ll wake up with a red nose.”

“It’s not nice to threaten people”, Derek tells him, but keeps the antlers on. Cora sends him a knowing smile as she covers her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing.

“Scott texted me that he and Kira are arriving today”, Stiles mentions as he stretches to put the star on top of the tree. Cora makes a face.

“Are we picking them up at the airport?”

“Nah, they said they’d take the car, but they’ll come over later and then we’ll all eat dinner together. Melissa said she’d be making roast beef and I promised dad we’d be making an exception with the no-meat-rule today. I hope that’s alright?”

“Sure.”

Derek honestly is not so sure. He has dreaded meeting Scott since he first heard of him. He hears Stiles talking to him on the phone now and then and it seems he still has not dropped the attempts to convince Stiles from being more suspicious of Derek. He does not sound like Derek and Scott had the best relationship, but neither did Derek and Stiles before he lost his memory and thus, the great suspicion over their new closeness.

“Are they staying here as well?”, Cora asks.

“No, they’ll stay with Scott’s mum, but we’d like to all spend Christmas eve together. Lydia said she’d send a card, because she can’t make it this year.”

*

They start preparing dinner early, every one of them stealing away for a while in order to get the prepared presents and put them under the Christmas tree. Even the Sheriff takes a turn, as he returns from his shift. Once it is Derek’s turn, there is already a pile of badly wrapped presents. Neither one of them is good at this, it seems.

Melissa comes over with a basket full of cooking ingredients and presents of her own. She and Derek have talked a few times already, and she has accepted that he is now a steady variable in the Stilinski household. They are polite, friendly, if a bit distant with each other, but she seems to like that he cooks.

“I’ll take the roast, you’ll do the salad, Stiles go and skin the potatoes. Oh, Cora, how nice to see you again, how are you?”

They exchange pleasantries, Melissa smirks at the reindeer antlers on Derek’s head, then Derek pulls the recipe for cinnamon rolls up on Stiles’ computer. He starts making the dough, and as Stiles looks up from the peeled potatoes, and realizes what Derek is doing, he gets this hungry look in his eyes.

“You complete me.”

Derek laughs unexpectedly. He lifts the dough up with his hands to put it into a bowl, covered with a towel so it can rise, and even before the roast is ready, there is a ring on the door. The Sheriff gets up to open and Derek catches the whiff of werewolf. The guests at the door are not human, not even the girl, and Derek can hear the noises of clothes rustling, shoes being pulled off. Stiles puts the cutlery down on the table and goes to welcome them as well.

“Scott, my man!”, he exclaims and there must be a lot of hugging and shoulder slapping involved. “Kira, good to see you again, looking sharp and beautiful as ever!”

“Hey, Stiles, nice to see you again!”

“Stiles! Man! How are you?”

They are in a good mood as they enter the kitchen, but as soon Scott’s gaze falls onto Derek, his face sours. Derek finishes mixing the salad and puts the bowl on the table.

“It’s nice to meet you”, Derek says evenly.

“Derek”, Scott says.

“Hey, Derek”, Kira greets. She immediately goes on to greeting Cora and Melissa, while Melissa hugs her son, but Scott keeps his eyes trained on Derek as if he suspects him to blow the hole place up in a second. Instead, Derek checks on his dough, which has puffed up considerably. He glances at the recipe, kneads it and then sets it on the counter which he dusted with flour. Melissa is bustling around him, Cora is stealing glances over his shoulder and somehow, Stiles was able to tear Scott and his girlfriend away from the kitchen, leaving him baking and cooking in peace.

“Smells good”, Stiles finally announces his presence and Derek puts the cinnamon rolls in the oven. They settle down, Melissa even lights a few candles, it is dark outside the windows, and it could be a wonderfully peaceful evening.

Still, to Derek the atmosphere seems so thick you could cut it with a knife. They sit at opposite sides of the table, and once he sees Scott looking around the table for the potatoes, he sees them right next to Derek, but instead of asking for them, he begins eating just the roast on his plate. Stiles notices, because he is more observant than people give him credit for, and hands the potatoes to Scott.

“Studies going well?”, the Sheriff asks.

“Mhm…”, Scott swallows, “I guess, I’m thinking of taking a gap year, though.”

“But not before you finish your studies!”, Melissa exclaims.

“Mum, I’m not sure this is the right thing for me.”

“Have you thought about finding a new pack?”, Stiles asks Kira meanwhile and they start a conversation about the various supernatural creatures they have met since they have last seen each other. Cora has a few stories of her own, creatures that you only find in South America, and they decide to keep in contact over such knowledge in order to expand Stiles’ online bestiary.

“Why can’t you get off my case anyway. Am I the only one thinking it’s weird that Derek’s sitting here like nothing happened? Never mind he lost his memory, he was a murder suspect and has caused nothing but trouble to all of us! Or did you all forget that?”

A murder suspect.

Derek decides to put this information ad acta.

“Scott, I told you, second chances, man. Also, the murder suspect thing was ages ago and we all know he wasn’t guilty.”

“Oh, so now it’s alright that he squats at your house and you let him use you so he can live here rent free. Do you even realize that you smell totally like him? Seriously, what did you do? Roll around in his dirty clothes?”

While Kira, Melissa and John decide to focus all of their attention on their dinner, Stiles puts his fork and knife down to throw his arms in the air. He squawks a little in indignation and Derek weakly shakes his head. Cora snorts into her glass of wine.

“What’s up with you Scott? I know you were never too happy about the whole werewolf thing but even you should know that wolves need to scent, and contact in order to stay healthy. It’s a pack thing, I mean, did you know that scientists say you should get at least four hugs a day to prevent death? I get that you don’t like Derek, but even you wouldn’t want him dying because of loneliness!”

“Oh, a pack thing, that’s what he told you? And you probably ate that up because of your little crush that you had when you and Lydia were over. Well, I’m telling you, he’s using you! He probably hasn’t even lost his memory!”

“Oh, he has”, the Sheriff tells him. “For weeks I’ve been going grocery shopping with him or seen him wander around town with Stiles or alone, and he keeps waving confusedly at people he should actually know.” He shovels a few pieces of potato on his fork. “And he keeps smiling. It’s unsettling really.”

Derek does his best not to turn red.

“Dude, he even forgot who Ironman was”, Stiles adds with a serious look. Scott answers the look with one to show his own disbelief. “I know, right?”, Stiles exclaims and Cora snorts again into her wine glass. “I had to reeducate him completely, watch all the Marvel movies and we haven’t even touched on DC yet! You know, just for comparison!”

“Derek doesn’t like superhero movies”, Cora says.

Stiles starts to sputter.

“Well, I don’t know about before when he was a total killjoy, but he totally does now.” He looks at Derek for support. Derek hastily shoves potatoes in his mouth. Stiles yelps and Scott makes a noise as if he has just won something, though, no one knows what exactly.

“Derek!?”, Stiles exclaims, betrayal clear in his voice.

“I think they make no sense. The strength of the superheroes varies based only on whether the writers want them to succeed or not. The source literature is often quite interesting and diverse, and still, they manage to have no interesting characters and way too much queerbaiting. Also, seeing all these destroyed houses and cities makes me kind of nervous”, Derek says defensively into his plate and avoids looking at anyone.

“DEREK?”, Stiles yelps undignifiedly. “How can you betray me like that? You love superheroes! You watched all the movies with me!”

“The destruction makes you nervous?”, Scott repeats in disbelief. “Did you forget that you lived in nothing but destroyed buildings and trains for the whole time we knew you?”

“Yes”, Derek deadpans.

“But you said you like Thor!”, Stiles cries.

“I do, because I like reading about Northern mythology.”

“Oh my god, my bro is still such a nerd.” Cora shakes her head.

“You are wounding me!”

“I’ve got no idea what is going on, but someone hand me the potatoes”, the Sheriff says. Melissa smiles at him and hands them over. Kira is still focused on her dinner. She has obviously decided to stay out of all of this. Derek gets up to check on the cinnamon rolls.

The conversation continues like that. People talking over each other, Stiles keeps questioning Derek over various superheroes which Derek does all not like for some reason or other, while Scott wants to get back on topic, but no one really remembers what that was. After a while, Cora gets up to get more wine, but returns with the post that had been forgotten earlier. Lydia’s Christmas card has arrived and they read it aloud at the dinner table.

“How long are you staying?”, Cora asks Scott and Kira once everything has calmed down.

“Only for a few days. I need to get back for my studies”, Kira answers and there is silence.

“Does anyone want some gingerbread persons or cinnamon rolls? Derek made them?” Stiles presents the plate for everyone to see. They look at it in fascination.

“Derek bakes?”, Scott asks.

“No”, Derek answers at the same time as Stiles says:

“Oh yeah, that’s why I’m keeping him around. He also makes pancakes. It’s his secret passion.”

Derek groans. Cora grins.

Eventually, Melissa excuses herself, and Scott and Kira decide to go back home with her. Stiles packs them a few cinnamon rolls and gingerbread persons, hugs them at the door again, and together they see them off. He tells his father to go to bed, because he already had to work today, and him and Derek would clear the table instead.

Cora suggests they watch a Christmas movie and when she and Stiles start arguing over whether to watch “The Grinch” or “A Wonderful Life”, Derek just turns the TV on and they watch “The Santa Clause 2” instead, a movie they all hate.

“Please let me forget about this movie immediately”, Derek mutters as the credits roll.

“Does it make more sense, if you’ve seen the first one?”, Cora asks, chewing on a gingerbread person. They both look at Stiles, who sits between them, his head on Derek’s shoulder. He contemplates it.

“No.”

So, they watch “The Santa Clause 3” as well, which follows right after the commercial break. Towards the end, Derek can hear Stiles’ breath and heartbeat even out and he is putting more weight on his shoulder as he is falling asleep against him.

“Better bring your boyfriend to bed”, Cora tells him, yawns, and gets up to go to bed herself. “This movie was even worse than the second one.” She steps over Derek’s propped up legs, and calls back: “And get up in time tomorrow, or I’ll take all your presents!”

Derek sighs.

“Good night, Cora.”

“Good night, Der.”

He turns off the TV, then grabs Stiles and carries him up to his room bridal style. He puts him onto the bed carefully, pulling off his jeans and tucking him in. Stiles mumbles softly in his sleep, but does not wake. Derek goes to brush his teeth and then gets into bed on the other side. He snuggles deeper into the bedding, putting an arm around Stiles and pulling him close. Stiles sighs contentedly, turning towards him and pushing his nose into Derek’s chest.

Derek feels a rumbling deep in his own chest, and he buries his own nose in Stiles’ hair, his scent, his warmth, as he slowly drifts off to sleep.

*

Christmas morning is another mess.

They sit amidst torn paper pieces and torn off bows in their joggers or pajamas around the Christmas tree sipping hot chocolate from steaming mugs and watch as one present after the other gets unwrapped.

“Happy birthday”, Cora tells him and hands him a present.

“It’s my birthday?”

“You forgot?”

“I guess…”, he mumbles, looking over at Stiles.

“Don’t look at me! I didn’t know you had a birthday at all! Guess you’ll get twice as many presents next year”, he decides.

Derek snorts and unwraps his present. It is a book, of which she says he loved when he was younger. He does not know it, but promises to read it immediately.

He revels in the feelings this scene awakes in him and he is a bit afraid of how much he enjoys it all, having Stiles, John and his sister here. He knows already that he will miss her the second she steps on her plane back.

Then Stiles is handing him a present and makes him squeeze it.

“Squeeze it, then you’ll see it’s one of those lame squishy presents. So, prepare for disappointment. All I got you is a mountain of unwashed socks.”

“Where’d you get a mountain of unwashed socks?”

“From the laundry basket, what did you think?”

They all laugh, and Stiles winks at him, but when Derek tears the paper apart, there are no socks, but instead a new black leather jacket. Derek holds it up, gets up, tries it on under the hollering of Stiles and Cora, and tries not to get emotional.

“Walk that wolfwalk, wolfman!”, Stiles tells him, but Derek does not. Instead, he points to the three little presents that have almost gone lost under all the torn wrappings, and the Sheriff picks them up. He reads the little name tags, throws one for Stiles to catch, one for Cora, while he opens the third himself. Derek knows what the presents are, they are all the same for the three of them and he feels really small all of a sudden, inadequate, because, yes, the presents are almost too small to count.

“What’s this for?”, Stiles asks first, turning the small key between his fingers. His father and Cora pull out matching ones, and Derek swallows.

“It’s for the new house. You can’t go in there yet, because it’s still not ready, but when it’s finished, I want you to know, that you’re all welcome to come and visit or stay there. You’ve let me into your home, so now I’m returning the favor.”

Stiles literally throws himself at Derek.

He is hugging the older man as if he is trying to squeeze the air out of his lungs. When Derek hugs him back, almost on autopilot, Stiles murmurs into his ear:

“Don’t worry. I’ve known all along that you’re nothing but a big old softie.”

Derek huffs and Stiles lets go of him to sit back down on the floor, legs crossed. The sheriff, seated on the couch, reaches down to pat Derek on the shoulder.

“Thank you, son. You’re welcome to stay here anytime.”

*

The day that Cora leaves, Derek hugs her for a felt eternity. He wants to say so many things to her. About how he is glad to have a sister, to have her as a sister, and that he will miss her, and that he hopes to see her soon again, and how thankful he is that she accepted him living without his memories.

The days after Christmas had been good. They had seen Scott and Kira once more, it had been pleasant, and they had all had a look at where they had torn the old Hale house down. Cora had wiped a secretive tear out of the corner of her eye, but in the end, she had taken up conversations with Stiles about jacuzzies and also waterslides, hammocks and swings.

“Don’t worry, big bro. Remember, I have a key to your house so I could basically turn up any minute without any notice. Better not have sex on the kitchen table, okay?”

Derek chokes and Cora lets go of their bone-crushing hug, laughing, waving and goes through the security controls after which she disappears down the hall. Derek tears himself away and looks over to Stiles who is standing a few feet back because he had wanted to give them some privacy. He is now coming over, reaching for Derek’s hand.

“Let’s get some tacos on the way home”, he decides.

Derek nods, tries to think about tacos, tacos on the kitchen table, and nothing else, especially no sex on the kitchen table, especially not in public.

“Also, did I hear her mention sex on the kitchen table? What was that about?”

Derek reflects on how he really has no peace in his life.

*

“Do you think I’m taking advantage of him?”, Derek asks a few weeks into his therapy sessions. He had been thinking of Stiles and how he had simply accepted him, gotten lost in thought a bit actually, while staring at the big plant. He remembers too late, that the last topic they talked about is Scott’s distaste of him and what that means for his past self.

“Of Stiles? What makes you think that?”, Dr. Sinclair asks, obviously knowing where his thoughts went.

Derek is silent for a few minutes.

“If I was really such a bad person that his best friend still hates me… then- I just don’t understand how he was able to immediately grant me a second chance without any anger. Shouldn’t he be angry? For me staying in his house, taking up all his time after all those things I have apparently done… to him and his friends.”

“Have you asked Stiles whether he holds grudges against your past self?”

“No. I mean, we talked about it a bit, but… I don’t know.”

“Okay.” She writes something down and Derek frowns. “Do you get the feeling that he holds an anger against you?”

“No.”

“What makes you think he might hate you?”

“Just… as I said. His friend hates me.”

“Have you tried to convince Scott that you have changed or has he had a lot of chances to get to know you since you lost your memory?”

“No. I only saw him once at Christmas.”

The therapist is looking at him thoughtfully for a second, before replying:

“It sounds to me that Stiles had a lot more opportunities to get to know you and express his feelings about you. Isn’t it possible to trust Stiles’ judgement more than a person that has only met you once in the past year? What about other people that you see regularly? Do you have the feeling that any of them hate you?”

Derek thinks about the Sheriff first, then Melissa, his sister Cora. The three people he had most contact with since he lost his memory, aside from the random people he meets in town, the waitress at the diner, the architect, the construction workers, people he sees or saw regularly but has not really interacted with. He has seen Cora only at Christmas as well, but they do talk on the phone regularly now.

He remembers what she had told him when he finally told her the truth about him and Stiles. It had been a few weeks after Christmas, when it had become too hard to keep up the pretense of “not liking Stiles that way” and “only cuddling for pack reasons”. She had known already, of course. But it had still been hard to admit. Especially, because Stiles meant just so much to him and he was still afraid he would jinx it, lose him when his memory fully returned.

“Didn’t I tell you, big bro?”, she had said over the phone. “I could see immediately that you wanted to get up all in that, don’t deny it now.” She had sounded so smug, but then this softness had creeped into her voice. “Good for you, Derek. You too fit well together.”

“Thank you, Cora. He really means a lot to me. You do too.”

“Don’t get all emotional now, alright? Okay, I gotta go! Call again some time, Der!”

Derek thinks about that, and Dr. Sinclair lets him.

*

On the day, somewhen in late spring, the new house is finished, Stiles tells Derek to go take a walk, because when he will be back, there will be “a surprise for him”.

“You know, it isn’t exactly a surprise, if I was there for the whole process of building it”, Derek replies, but in the end, unsurprisingly, he humors him.

He does not go for a walk. He goes for a run.

He ditches his clothes behind a tree, where he hopes to find them again, and then he shifts and it has been so long, that for a few minutes he just needs to stand there and get used to his own skin again.

He realizes he has not shifted since he has lost his memory, and he feels like another puzzle piece has settled into place. He can smell the scent of the forest even stronger than before, feel the whispering of the wind, the wildlife beneath his paws, high above his head in the trees and he starts, dashing through the Preserve, which is glowing in the early evening sun.

He only feels ready to shift back, once the sun is set low, and it is slowly getting dark. Lazily he returns to the pile of clothes that has not been touched, but when he shifts, he only ties them together in a way, he is sure, he has learned from his parents back when they were still alive, because it is the kind of skill wolves pass on to their children. Afterwards, he shifts again and is able to pick up the bundle without his teeth tearing the fabric.

Carefully, he follows the scent back to where the Jeep is parked, he carefully sniffs and realizes that Stiles must have left in the meantime and come back again. He traces him back to the new house, which is looking a bit empty now, with all the construction equipment gone. There are no signs of life on it yet, no dirt on the walls, where a ball has been accidently thrown against it in a game of basketball or any other ball sport, no flowers growing around it, only dirty ground, and when you look into the windows, there are only empty rooms to see in the faint glimmer of moonlight.

Despite not seeing him anywhere, Derek knows Stiles must be in the house. He walks up to the front door and starts pawing at it. It takes a while for something to happen. A light is turned on, there are steps and then the door is opened. Derek feels so natural in his shifted form that when Stiles actually jumps back at seeing him, he is confused as to why. Then he remembers. He is a wolf.

“Dude!”, Stiles exclaims, still backing off another step. Derek thinks quickly how to look less threatening and lies down on his stomach, making himself small and letting go of his bundle of clothes. He looks up at Stiles expectantly.

“Dude”, Stiles repeats. “Derek, is this you? I’m pretty sure it’s you, because that looks a lot like your leather jacket that you just fetched like some stick. But at the same time, I won’t discard the possibility that a real ass wolf or another werewolf killed you and ate you in one bite, only leaving your clothes behind to bring me as a kind of threat. Though, that would really be a dick move. Derek? Please tell me that’s you and you haven’t been stripped and eaten?”

Derek rolls his eyes. Stiles relaxes at once.

“Dude, not cool, how can you still look so sarcastic when you’re so fluffy?”

Derek hops up on all fours and tries to walk by Stiles into the house, but the other man tries to hold him back, slinging his arms around the wolf’s body.

“No! Wait! I prepared a surprise! Oh my god, you’re so fluffy! So soft! Why didn’t you tell me you could do full shift?”

Okay, Derek decides, and turns back. Stiles squawks as he is confronted with a very much naked Derek, but Derek just picks him up, carrying him into the living room to see the surprise for himself. Stiles protests, but only when he is standing in the doorway Derek stops, and stares, because what he sees really is a surprise. 

Stiles has taken the completely empty room with the big glass front and had turned it into a pillow fort. He must have gotten back to his house and brought all this stuff with the Jeep, because there actually is a lamp. If it would not be turned on, it would be dark enough in the room to see outside into the forest. One or two windows are open, so Derek can hear the warm wind carding through the leaves, the hooting owls, and it is dark, and quiet and calm and in the empty room there is a nest built out of blankets and pillows, and a bag next to it that smells of food.

“I told you it was a surprise!”, Stiles cries indignantly. Derek looks at him stunned, slowly letting him down on the floor.

“Thanks, Tarzan”, Stiles tells him sarcastically.

“Did you plan all this?”, he asks. Stiles shrugs.

“I thought, you’d like it. I can get rid of it, though, and we can just go back to my house, or you stay here and I leave. You probably don’t have any problems sleeping without a bed if you can just turn into a dog.”

“I do like it.”

“Oh?”, Stiles asks, but is still pouting a bit at the ruined surprise. He turns to sit down in the middle of the pillow and blanket fort. With a snip of his finger, the lights become muted and… romantic. Derek wonders briefly whether he should put on clothes, if being naked would seem presumptuous. In a compromise, he quickly loosens the knot of his clothes bundle and pulls his boxer shorts on. Then, he hurries to sit down next to Stiles. The blankets bundle up under them, making a mess of the nest.

“I really do like it”, Derek quietly whispers.

Stiles turns to look at him.

“And you had to ruin it”, he says jokingly. They smile and are quiet for a while. Derek lets the atmosphere settle into him. The house. The new and empty house with only them inside, the dim light of the lamp glowing. The house still smells a lot of settling sweat and dust, but also of echoes and emptiness, possibilities. When Derek looks around, he can already imagine how this will be a real home in some time, with warmth and memories and belonging.

“Thank you, Stiles.”

“You’re welcome, Derek.”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“I don’t know Derek. Can you?”, he replies as he did once before. Derek grins and pounces.

They collide, they tumble to the floor, the nest of cushions and blankets. They are just a mess of limbs and breathless laughter, and Derek knows neither where his body ends nor where Stiles’ starts, and they breath the same ear, and Derek lowers himself, makes their bodies touch even more, brings them impossibly closer.

Stiles puts his hands in Derek’s hair and they are kissing, soft, slow, dragging. Their mouths are touching, just like every other part of their bodies. Derek lets his fingers trail up and down Stiles’ ribs until he drags his shirt.

Meanwhile, Stiles licks his way into Derek’s mouth, cradles his head, pulls at his hair, moaning softly, as the werewolf caresses his skin. Their kiss turns deeper and their tongues meet, breathlessly, they breath each other, still slow without rush. Stiles starts to pant against Derek’s lips and Derek pulls away from the kiss to nuzzle his nose against Stiles’, dragging his nose over his cheek to his ear, where he inhales the scent of his mate. This time he also starts to lick, dragging his tongue from the man’s ear down the curve of his neck, where he tears at the hindering shirt, pulls it over the man’s head, off, and throws it away. Stiles had to let go of him, had to put his arms up and now wiggles helplessly as Derek starts to mouth down his chest, at his nipples, and Stiles starts to giggle and turn away. Derek tries again, but Stiles swats at him, laughing.

“Stop, ticklish”, he pants, and Derek holds him, turns him back around, laughing, kissing him. The younger man grins into the kiss, putting his arms back around his lover’s shoulders. Derek’s stubble tickles also his chin, but there Stiles does not seem to mind, and for a while they just kiss. Only when they have to come up for breath, Derek pulls away slightly, not far enough for Stiles to have to let go of him. He looks down at Stiles, searches for any doubt or discomfort in his eyes, but they are dark and hooded and his mouth is red and Derek wants to bite and nip and lick at his lips, but his stupid brain instead decides to open his mouth.

“I lied”, is what comes out and it is possibly the worst thing to say in this situation. Stiles looks up at him in confusion, long eyelashes fluttering when he squints at him.

“About what?”

“Back when we first met, I mean, when I came back into town after I lost my memory, and I met you for the first time”, he starts and Stiles nods slowly.

“What? Are you possessed after all?”, he jokes. Derek shakes his head.

“No, I, about the thing, about how I found you. Do you remember?”

“You remembered my scent.”

“I didn’t. I lied. I didn’t remember. I thought I met you for the first time.”

“Then what-“, Stiles begins, but Derek rushes to get the truth out already.

“I love it, your scent. It smells awesome, I just had to follow it. I wanted to scent you from the first minute, and I had no idea who you were. And now I know you and that you’re this amazing person and I still want to scent you all the time.” He lowers himself on top of Stiles to hide his face in the crook of his neck, holding him tightly. He can feel Stiles’ hands on his back, roaming over his naked skin.

“So,”, Stiles begins, and Derek almost laughs with relief, because he knows that tone in his voice, “you’re saying you had a crush on me, sourwolf?”

Derek kisses him, and when Stiles pulls back enough to press their foreheads together, the younger man quietly murmurs:

“You know, I prepared this, because I was trying to be romantic? Because I’m wholeheartedly on board with… all of this. Because I totally have a crush on you, too.”

They do not so much as kiss, but inhale each other, clinging to each other, rubbing against each other, trying to claw their way inside the other to get impossibly closer. Derek tries to free himself of his boxer shorts once more, and Stiles already wiggled out of his, first his trousers, then his boxer shorts for good measure and then there is nothing to keep them from touching everywhere.

Stiles’ erection strains up towards his stomach and Derek licks down his chest, his abdomen, nestling his nose in the dark treasure trail, before he takes him in his mouth. Stiles groans loudly as the head of his dick is engulfed by wet heat. Derek sucks, and Stiles bucks his hips up at the pulling sensation, but Derek holds his hips with both his hands down. Stiles whines.

“Derek, don’t, come on, oh my god, don’t stop right now, I mean, if you really need to stop, sure, no pressure man, but you’re kinda killing me here. Don’t tease me like this, don’t be a teaser, no one likes, ah, ah, Derek, no one likes a teaser, at least be a trailer, please, oh”

Derek grins around the dick in his mouth and starts to move his tongue, swirling it up over the head, then back down as Derek starts to bob his head. He lets go of Stiles’ hips in order to cup his balls, slide his fingers between his cheeks, fondling his ass. Stiles groans.

“Oh my god, why is this so good? Why are you so good at this? Is this like, ah, ah, a secret talent of werewolves, like, are you really good, ah, at handling meat?” He groans deeply and Derek has to keep from laughing with a cock in his mouth.

It is not long after, that he warns Derek, fingers tugging at his hair. But Derek just bobs his head up and down, before sucking almost the entire dick into his mouth, his nose pressed to the soft skin of Stiles’ abdomen, and swallowing just as the other man comes down his throat with a sharp gasp.

Derek pulls off his softening dick, and climbs back up the human’s body to kiss him dirtily, making him lick his own come out of Derek’s mouth. Stiles’ cheeks are red and flushed and his wet dick is pressing against Derek’s own, and he fumbles for Derek’s erection, taking hold of it. He casually starts to jerk it up and down, pulling on it, stroking it. Derek groans.

They start to rut against each other, and it is embarrassingly fast as he shudders all over as he comes over both their stomachs and then stills. They both breathe heavily.

“Holy shit, dude,” Stiles breaths. “This is the best.”

“Stiles”, Derek groans, nipping at his lower lip. “Stiles, you smell so good.”

Stiles laughs, which makes his body vibrate against the werewolf. Derek rumbles deeply, inhaling the younger man’s scent.

“You got a scent kink, grumpypants?”

“Am I really so grumpy?”, Derek asks, mouthing at Stiles’ nose, ear, sucking at his neck.

“Not so much anymore”, Stiles admits. His voice has gone suspiciously rough. Derek puts a hand against his cheek, watches him closely. Stiles yawns, and they decide to settle down, their arms and legs tangled. Stiles stretches in order to pull one of the blankets over them, but it will eventually slip down in their sleep, because werewolves are living furnaces and it is a warm night, the forest rustling around them and the moon bright, not completely full yet.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I made some MINOR changes in the first two chapters, tho, nothing in the story itself changed - so no worries!  
> No need to read the same chapters again, mostly typos and stuff ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, well, the last chapter.
> 
> I'm glad I can end the year with this ^^
> 
> Enjoy the rest of the story!

In the morning, early sunbeams are falling through the windows and onto the nest they have built for themselves. Cushions and blankets are strewn around the newly laid floor, the room slowly heating up after the cool night. The house is empty but for the few traces of the human and the werewolf. The shoes and jackets beside the front door, the key left stuck in the lock, the rations of chips and sandwiches, candy and beer and water bottles piled up in a corner not too far from where the sleeping place has temporarily been built. Even though, they brought more than enough blankets to sleep comfortably despite the hard floor, they hardly need any of it, tangled up in each other, seeking warmth from body heat. Stiles has his cheek on the Derek’s chest, which is rising calmly and evenly, and only when his nose gets tickled by the sunlight, Stiles sneezes and blinks awake.

“Hhhuuurgh”, he groans and buries his face in the werewolf’s naked chest.

Derek, who has woken up when Stiles sneezed, chuckles and smiles down at the other man. Stiles’ long eyelashes flutter over his soft cheek and Derek wants to kiss him. So, he turns on his stomach, taking Stiles with him, who protests mildly, frowning in his state of half-sleep. When Stiles is laying on his back, Derek cages him with his elbows and slowly lowers his mouth to Stiles’.

“Stop, I probably have horrible morning breath, and you as well, by the way. Don’t think I won’t tell you that, just because we did the dirty tango, you catch my drift?”, Stiles mumbles between nipping at Derek’s bottom lip and licking into his mouth. Derek chuckles and deepens the kiss even further, not having the mind to think of a reply. Stiles eyes Derek’s muscled arms as they bracket him in, and he slowly blinks himself awake. He probably can see now how Derek looks at him way too fondly, like Stiles hung the freaking moon, and he is sure his cheeks are red, so he evades his searching eyes the only way he can think of, kissing Stiles sloppily. They make out until they are fully hard, feeling frantic.

“I need you- closer”, Stiles huffs, “like, way closer. Do you want that? Do you want to be inside me?”

Derek groans.

“You still talk so much.” It is not even a complaint.

“Of course, I still talk so much. I got no brain-to-mouth filter in the calmest of situations and this honestly fries my brains, so don’t expect any kind of eloquence of me, this is pure babbling.”

“I like your babbling”, Derek growls and cups Stiles’ ass, gripping it tightly.

“Oh yeah? Well, I like your talking eyebrows, but I also like your chiseled abs and that you’re laughing at my babbling, but not in a mean way, but in that fond way that you try to hide, because you want everyone to think, you’re a total bad boy. I like that you try to be a total bad boy, I like your leather jacket and I like that you let me borrow it, and that you pretend to leave it lying around, where I can borrow it, but let’s stop talking about your jacket and start talking about your dick. No, no, I take it back, stop talking about dick and let’s go to the dicking immediately.”

Derek groans, and not in a sexy way.

“Stiles.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, babbling, keep grabbing my ass, alright?”

Derek chuckles and complies, but then he moves away from Stiles, sitting between his spread legs. He loops one arm under Stiles’ knees and lifts them up until Stiles can hook his legs over Derek’s shoulders, his ass and lower back in the air. He makes a noise of protest, but then Derek’s using one of his hands to hold him up and the other to spread his ass cheeks. He starts to lick over the rim of his hole and feels Stiles shivering, making squawking noises.

Derek licks over it again, then places wet, open-mouthed kisses over the entrance.

“Oh, god, I, oh, don’t stop, I, I just had a really stupid joke about a dog, and, and, ah, licking his own butt, oh”

Stiles makes a whining sound and Derek feels really smug. He lowers him back down onto the blankets. Unfortunately, he has not brought lube.

“What- what’s wrong?”, Stiles pants.

“Lube”, Derek mumbles a bit lost.

Stiles holds his hand up, snaps his fingers and, ah, well, there is the lube. Derek stares at the little bottle in his hand.

“You can make lube appear?”, he wonders.

“Nah, I brought it with me, I just didn’t wanna look for it. Now, go on, with, whatever- the licking.” He waves his hand and Derek complies gladly. He puts the lube aside in favor of bending down, crawling over Stiles, who is clawing at him. Derek drops down a kiss on Stiles’ mouth, beneath his ear, trailing down kisses all the way until he is nuzzling is nose into his abdomen, his treasure trail.

“Oh, mhm, yes, I’m all for that, don’t stop, show me how werewolves bury their bone.”

Derek snorts into Stiles’ crotch and Stiles shrieks in surprise. Stiles flails and almost kicks Derek in the face. The werewolf laughs and hides his face in his hands. When the younger man demands the other stop laughing and continue with the sexy times, Derek only laughs harder.

He needs a good few minutes to calm himself down, breathing hard, but then Stiles takes his hand to guide it back to his ass, and Derek pulls himself together, takes deep gulps of air and is altogether reminded of how this is the man he wanted to take and keep to himself forever since he first caught a whiff of his scent. He pours lube over his fingers and probs the wet entry, slips one inside making Stiles gasp. He continues until he is knuckle-deep inside him, adds a second finger and begins to scissor him, opening him up. After deliciously torturous teasing, he adds a third, a fourth finger, probes around Stiles’ entry, thrusts his fingers in and out, searching for that sweet spot that has Stiles writhing and moaning.

“Stop with the fingers”, Stiles pants, “just, come on, I need you inside me, give me, give me your dick, bury your bone, I need to be close to you”

Derek tries to ignore him in fear he will make him laugh again. He tries to stay serious and pulls his fingers back out of his, seating himself on his heels. He bends over Stiles’ hot and sweaty body. He still smells of cinnamon, forest, grass, but also of Derek and sleep and their activities from the evening before and Derek wants to bury himself in him. He takes his dick in hand and guides it to the loosened hole. Stiles whines, eyes pressed closed, red and puffy lips open, forming an ‘o’.

“What are you waiting for?” Stiles opens his eyes, locking them with Derek’s, big and honey-brown but so much darker now, long lushes obscuring them slightly, “come on, Derek, fuck me.”

Derek rushes to comply. He places the head of is dick against the wet entrance and slowly starts to push in. Stiles moans and as Derek pushes in further, he lays down onto Stiles hot body. Stiles is arching up to meet him and Derek bottoms out, they cling to each other and kiss whatever body part they can reach. Together, they set a pace, slow at first, with Derek pushing in and pulling out almost completely, bottoming out. Stiles’ insides are all delicious heat and friction and he snakes his hand between their bodies to jerk Stiles off while his rhythm is getting faster and more frantic. Stiles claws at his back, and bites at his shoulders. They forget to kiss and only breath into each other’s mouths, eyes half open.

If Derek thought Stiles smells amazing, it is nothing compared to how they smell together, and Derek realizes that he already knows the reason for this. He has thought it once earlier already. Stiles is his mate, and if there is anything, he can do to keep him in his life, he will do it. Anything. Everything.

All his rhythm is lost once the orgasm starts to build deep in his belly. His thrusts stutter, his jerking of Stiles’ cock sloppier, but Stiles is holding on to him and moaning and whining and calling out his name, “Derek, Derek, please, so good, Derek”, finally, he slams into Stiles once, twice, as deep as he can, and then slumps over him with a moan himself. He comes inside the other man and at the same time, Stiles comes all over his hand, their stomachs. They lie there in a pile of boneless limps, unable to move, gulping for air. Once Derek regains some of his movement, he starts to lazily mouth at Stiles’ throat and collarbone, sucking love bites into the tender skin.

“I’m really glad we’re doing this now, boning I mean.”

“What a relief”, Derek retorts, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t fuck with me, Derek!”, Stiles exclaims in joking, “fuck me, yes, please, fuck you, gladly, but”, he stops himself, biting his lip, “Never mind.”

Derek carefully pulls away and out of Stiles, which makes both of them flinch a little at the sensitiveness of their skin. They sit next to each other, surrounded by distraught blankets and pillows. Derek reaches for one of the smaller blankets and starts to clean the drying come out of his pubic hair. Then he turns to clean Stiles as well and Stiles asks:

“What did you mean? When you said that you liked my smell? Is it, is it just really good or something?”

Derek hesitates, carefully cleaning Stiles’ stomach and then shifting to clean him between the legs as well.

“You smell really good, but I think not in general, but to me.”

“So, you’re saying you’re a fan of eau de Stiles?”, Stiles smirks.

“I wouldn’t say it like that, because that’s a horrible way to say anything, but…”

“Is it a mates thing?”, Stiles interrupts him and Derek freezes.

“What?”

“Is it a mates thing? Because I read about werewolves recognizing their mate by their scent and that they would then pursue this other person, court them and wanting to spend their whole life with them. Is it true that werewolves only have one mate each? Is it me? Am I your mate, like, a soulmate? Because, if not, don’t worry, it wouldn’t be a problem, we can just go on dating without being mates, I understand, it’s nothing you can decide, but if yes, then that would be cool, too. I’d totally be the best werewolf mate you can imagine, giving you belly scratches and treats and going on walks, and, okay, I see the way you look at me, I get it, werewolves are not dogs, I’ll just stop now”, he finishes and makes a gesture like he is zipping his own lips shut.

Derek swallows. He throws the blanket away and takes Stiles in his arms again, burying his face in the calming warmth. Stiles stays quiet, but hugs him back, leaning back down on his back and pulling Derek onto his stomach.

After a while his breathing slows and he mumbles against the human’s skin:

“You mean a lot to me, Stiles.”

“Right back at you, sourwolf.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“I promise you won’t. You haven’t lost me yet. What makes you think you will now.”

Derek hesitates.

“I don’t know. I just- I just still feel so unsure if it comes you, because you’re the biggest risk I could take. I don’t know what I will do if I lose you, and if that’s the risk than I rather not-“

“Don’t say it!”, Stiles interrupts him, fingers twirling Derek’s short hair between his fingers. He is gripping the werewolf close to him, fingers probably bruising if Derek would have been human. Their naked bodies are still warm where the press together, but the fresh air in the room is brushing over Derek’s back and he shudders.

“Don’t say it”, Stiles repeats. “You can’t just decide to not take the risk when this is about both of us. I took the risk to let you back into my life that first day we met and now you have to take a risk as well. Tell me what I mean to you. I won’t abandon you. I promise.”

Derek takes a deep breath and as he exhales, he lets go of the truth, he only admitted to himself minutes earlier.

“You’re my mate.”

“I love you”, Stiles tells him, not even a second after Derek has spoken. The werewolf pulls back to look the human in the eyes, but even in his heartbeat he can hear no stutter, he is not lying and Derek braces himself on his forearms, cupping his mate’s face in his hands-

“I love you, too.”

-and instead of saying anything more, they both claim each other’s lips, not knowing who moved first, but kissing until their position gets a little uncomfortable, until they decide they are hungry and want to eat, until they decide to sit up, blankets pooling around them. Derek gets the bag with all the prepared sandwiches from last night, the drinks, and they picnic on the floor, holding hands, at least.

*

“LANDSKRONA”, Stiles reads aloud, looking skeptically at the price tag. “Bit pricy. What do you think? Argh, no, don’t answer! We cannot dismiss any couch just yet, before we have seen them all. Let me just…” He copies the name of the item onto their list. Derek is still sitting on the last couch that had been “a bit to leathery but whatever” and frowns.

“What do you mean? You can see them all. Only this room displays couches.”

“Only this room? Only? There’re like a hundred couches here. We need to decide carefully.”

“Whatever. I am happy with whatever you decide.”

“Oh, no, no, you can’t weasel your way out of deciding everything. You already took a pass at the table, the chairs – you need to feel comfortable in your own home and not like a stranger!”

“I really don’t care.”

Stiles groans.

"We can't do this with everything, Derek. You need to have an opinion.”

“Can’t I just shove the shopping cart and you decide whichever we get?”

Stiles groans again, walking up and down the aisle and waving his arms at the other shoppers as if they are part of his audience. Derek sighs and offers a compromise:

“Okay. You tell me if you see something you like and then I tell you whether I like it, too.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at him.

“That’s still a pretty lazy way to have an opinion.”

“It’s a compromise.”

Stiles seems to weigh his options.

“Okay.” The takes the werewolf’s hand and tugs him further. Together they decide on couches, chairs, tables, the most fun they have is looking at beds. Stiles basically jumps on the first king he sees, not letting go of Derek and pulling him down as well. Derek tries to get up, but Stiles slings his arms around his middle and they fight for dominance, ignoring the judging faces of the other people walking by. At last, Derek is able to shove Stiles off the bed and climb out of it the other side.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this to me! What am I? A cheap one-night stand?”, Stiles yelps, drawing even more curious looks. Derek walks away and pretends he does not know him.

“You can walk away, but I will stare at your ass while you do it!”

An employee in a yellow and blue uniform asks Stiles to stop yelling.

They buy as much stuff as will fit in the car and order the rest to be delivered to the new address. “As much stuff as will fit in the car” is really not as much as Stiles expects and Derek gently plants the thought of maybe, eventually, buying a newer, better car, but Stiles has none of it.

“It was my mum’s car”, he explains shortly and Derek does not bring it up again. He himself has not driven his Camaro in weeks, parking it almost permanently in front of Stiles and the sheriff’s house.

They drive back to the new Hale house –

“Hale-Stilinski house”, Stiles greets it, patting the house front gently.

No, Derek replies with his eyebrows.

“It’ll be good having it twist your tongue every time you call it. Gives you some tongue practice.” He winks at Derek. Derek coughs and says stubbornly.

“I won’t call my house at all.”

– so, they drive back to the new Hale-Stilinski house, unload all their shopping, look at the watch and decide to get into the whole “putting together” later.

“Good day?”, the Sheriff catches them as they are preparing dinner together, pasta Bolognese, while Derek is humming quietly and Stiles is full-on whistling. They freeze up, water boiling, as if they had been caught in flagrante delicto. Trying to act calm, Derek fumbles for a spoon in order to test one of the noodles. Still a bit undercooked.

“Oh, yeah, we were at IKEA, buying new furniture and stuff for Derek’s new place. It really looks great, but still so empty. We had to order a lot that would not fit in the Jeep and”, Stiles gesticulates widely, but then meets the exasperated look of his father and deflates.

“Derek’s new place?”, John questions, with emphasis on Derek’s name. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression you’d both be moving in there, what with all the planning you were doing, and the ten different bedrooms.”

“Six. There are six bedrooms and most of them don’t actually need to be used as bedrooms. We could just as well put desks in all of them and call them work rooms.”

John looks at him expectantly. Stiles huffs, a bit embarrassed.

“Yes, alright, I heard what I said, I heard my usage of ‘we’ and I guess you probably won’t accept that I was using the royal ‘we’ as in ‘just Derek’. You got me.” He looks at Derek, pulling nervously at his fingers. “We’ve decided to give it a go and move in together.”

“…as roommates?”

“As …boyfriends or something.”

“Or something?” The Sheriff pulls an eyebrow up and looks at Derek now, who is blushing and ducking to get the noodle sieve.

“Well, you know, first, it is private and secondly, it is a werewolf thing, so you probably wouldn’t understand it anyway”, Stiles deflects.

“Oh, but you do?” The Sheriff turns an accusing look to Derek. “What have you done with my son? Just tell me so I know, that he isn’t in over his head.”

“Don’t answer that Derek.” Stiles puts up his hand, and Derek gladly decides that no he does not want to get involved in this, because if he would be able to think this all through, he would maybe eventually come to the conclusion that he would admit to the Sheriff that he was planning on having a serious relationship with his son. But, as of now, he himself really feels that he was in over his head and he does not dare try say anything to anyone.

“Derek and I are madly in love”, Stiles declares. “Wolfs mate for life, so we’re really serious about it and apparently I am Derek’s werewolf-version of a soulmate. So, that thing with being together forever seems actually quite promising right now. Now, in order to appease Derek’s inner wolf and also my best interests, we’re gonna move in together to build a wolf den for our eventual future pack.”

Derek almost drops the whole pot of noodles on the floor.

“Kid”, the Sheriff sighs “What did I say about being in over your head?”

*

Derek is decidedly in over his head. Head over wheels in love. He cannot believe, he is actually allowed to be with Stiles, take him home and cuddle with him every night. The Sheriff does not seem too surprised by that development, his sister is already smug about it, and well, he can think of no one else that matters.

After dinner, Stiles and him go up to Stiles’ room to sleep in an actual bed as long as there is only a nest of blankets and cushions and unassembled furniture lying about at the Hale-Stilinski house. The bed is too big to be carried in the Jeep, anyway, and they will have to stay at the house the next few days to be home when the delivery truck arrives.

They take turns in the bathroom, then rid themselves of their jeans and climb into bed together. Through unspoken agreement they find each other in the darkness under the blanket, kissing lazily while they hold and caress each other.

Derek is sucking at Stiles’ bottom lip, swallowing his moans and rumbling happily deep in his belly. Stiles bites at his shoulder in return, trying his best to leave marks on the quick healing werewolf body. As Derek rolls them over, covers the spark with his body, Stiles starts to buck up with his hips. They rub against each other until Stiles tears on the werewolf’s boxer shorts, pulling them down, taking the blanket with it. His fingers grip Derek’s ass tightly and Derek returns the favor of stripping Stiles off his own boxer shorts. He presses his nose into the younger man’s throat and inhales deeply. As he noses down, he nibbles at his collar bone, swiftly licking over Stiles’ nipples. He can feel Stiles’ body shudders beneath him and he knows that is because he is ticklish there.

“Stop it, teasewolf”, he grins and licks at Derek’s ear.

“Stop what?”, Derek rumbles.

“The teasing.”

So, Derek complies, sliding his fingers over Stiles’ hard shaft, pulling him once, twice softly, before going deeper until he finds the man’s hole. Stiles moans, hands Derek the lube he has somehow already in his hand. Derek smirks and takes it. He is sitting back on his knees between Stiles’ spread legs, and pours a generous amount over his fingers. He throws the bottle aside and gently starts to open Stiles up.

Once he places the head of his dick against the loosened entrance, Stiles pulls at his hair to make him look into his eyes. Their gazes meet, but neither says anything, Stiles being unusually quiet. Derek feels so many emotions in that moment that he needs to do something, so, he bends down and touches his lips to Stiles’ and Stiles entangles his hands in his hair and pulls him closer, so much closer. Derek pushes into him, attempts to become one with him. He finds Stiles’ prostate and Stiles gasps, breaking his silence.

“Oh, my fucking god, Derek.”

Derek growls and bites into his neck beneath his ear.

They find a slow rhythm, with Stiles digging his heels in the back of Derek’s thighs to draw him closer. The only friction Stiles’ dick gets is the steady rubbing against the werewolf’s muscled stomach as Derek keeps up with the gentle pace, not rushing anything this time. Stiles rocks slowly against him and Derek enjoys the tight heat of where their bodies are joined.

He has no illusions as to what this is. It is much to intimate, too important to be anything than making love and it makes his hips stutter against Stiles.

Once the heat in his belly gets hotter and he feels the orgasm approaching, he presses his face into the crook of Stiles’ neck, whining, even if he will deny it later. Stiles arches his back, moaning and Derek can feel his wet dick trapped between their bodies. It feels both like an eternity and way too fucking fast when Stiles comes with a low whine between them, and he feels every nerve in his body turning electric as he comes himself. They cling to each other, shuddering through the orgasm.

Stiles hisses, when Derek pulls out and lets himself fall on the bed next to him. Derek pulls the blanket over both of them, Stiles turns to bury his face in Derek’s chest, and they are lying curled together.

“Sticky”, Stiles mumbles.

Derek leans over and starts licking at his face.

“Gross”, Stiles says, but he cannot help but smile at Derek. Warmth blooms all over Derek’s body and he wants to wrap himself up in the spark’s scent and the combination of both of their scents and he wants to keep Stiles smelling like this forever. He never wants to let go of him again if possible.

“I love you”, Stiles whispers and Derek has to close his eyes. He tries to control his breathing, tries to get a hold on himself.

“I love you too.”

*

The ordered furniture arrives only a few days later, and they spend the whole day sitting on the floor in the new house, or stepping barefoot over small screws and other materials, while they search for the correct manual of whatever they are working on.

“I might have put pieces of the table together with pieces of…” Stiles turns in a circle and searches for something. “…the couch? Maybe? Maybe one of the armchairs, who knows.”

Derek groans and pulls his eyebrows together, but does not get up to help. Instead, he keeps assembling the king-sized bed, because if he is honest, that is kind of his priority right now.

“What are you working on? The couch table?”

“Does it look like the couch table?”, Derek asks incredulously.

“All I see is a piece of furniture we need to christen by having mind-blowing sex on top of them. Who cares what it is, exactly?”

Derek pointedly does not answer and starts working faster.

*

When Stiles is working, and Derek is bringing food to the pixies, and running through the Preserve. He chases rabbits and other small rodents. While he has no intention to actually catch something, he enjoys the hunt and it gives him back some of the peace he feels slipping through his fingers now and then.

His life is good. At the moment. The life he remembers is still not too much. He often dreams, gets pieces back, without any clear order, it seems. He mixes memories of his childhood with his time in Beacon Hills after Laura’s death, when he met Stiles and Scott and the others. It undoubtably changed things between him and Scott, him and Kira, him and Cora, to remember some of their interactions, arguments, but in the end, it is only small things.

He can already remember his last few years, even back to when he was staying in New York, growing out of his teens with his sister Laura by his side. He remembers now the feeling of belonging to a pack, first his big family with his parents, siblings and more extended family, then the very small one, just him and his Alpha sister. Deep down he knows the contentment his wolf feels means he is part of a pack now, with Stiles and even the Sheriff, but he is the only wolf, so it is not exactly the same.

He also remembers the pain of losing a loved one, of losing your Alpha, and still, his life is good right now. Stiles and him are living together in the new Hale-Stilinski house, which is still far from being furnished to satisfaction, and does not have a Jacuzzi, much to Stiles dismay. Stiles is still working as a Deputy, although, he is taking on more hours now, sometimes staying at work late. Those days, Derek prepares a meal and dessert for him, sometimes at their house, sometimes at the Sheriff’s house for the three of them. Derek even thinks about getting a job himself.

He also visits his therapist once a week, and talks. Sometimes, at least. Sometimes he just stares at the plant and remembers his parents and his siblings, the fire and all the things that have gone wrong in his life.

*

“How do you feel about getting your memories back?”, Dr. Sinclair had asks him.

“Scared. But also, less guilty.”

“Guilty for what?”

“For letting all the others remember and being free myself.”

In a weird way, he feels, it counteracts his survivor guilt.

*

He runs in his wolf skin until the moon rises high.

“Come on in”, Stiles says as he opens the door and lets Derek in when he returns home. The big black wolf passes trough the door close enough to brush against Stiles’ legs. “I’ve just put the lasagna in the oven, so, no food for some time. Wanna catch a movie?”

Stiles throws himself on the couch and Derek follows him, wagging his tail. He hops up next to Stiles, curling himself against him. Stiles turns the television on with a wave of his hand, letting it fall onto Derek’s back and starts petting him. They settle on some crime show that just started and Stiles keeps a running commentary.

“You think the detective's a werewolf for always sniffing the dead bodies?”

The wolf snorts and Stiles starts rubbing his fur.

“Yeah... probably not. Apropos dog! How do you feel about a dog door?”

*

The last memory does not return to him in his sleep.

There is a new case of supernatural potential. At first, there had only been a car crash on a road just outside of Beacon Hills. A car had left the road to bulldoze trough a cornfield, eventually getting stuck in a dirt hole. Nothing had happened to the driver. Although, it was weird that there had not been any skid marks on the asphalt, it had quickly been written off as a case of either DUI or falling asleep behind the wheel.

Then, exactly one week later, it happens again.

After the third time, the owner of the field had put up a fence next to the road. The fence was only a foot long and the other deputies working the case had laughed at that cheap attempt of keeping drivers out of the field.

“What are the chances another car is crashing at the exact same spot?”

Well, the fourth driver actually did crash. Right into the fence.

Now, Derek and Stiles are on “stake out”, sitting in one of the cruisers, because they both agreed the Jeep was way too

“Precious”, Stiles said.

“Fragile”, Derek said.

Anyway, there they are now. The cruiser parked on the side of the road, staring tiredly at countless cars flying by. Stiles is rattling off his reasoning why King Kong would absolutely smash Godzilla, and Derek is listening, holding back his protest for later.

“The key is the thumbs. Godzilla doesn’t have any of them, neither do any other lizards, and for the record, that’s exactly what Godzilla is. A radioactive lizard. Dude, it’s really a no brainer which of the two is the more evolved specimen. I mean, look at King Kong! He has a goal, a plan, and he knows how to execute it! Godzilla was just smashing through infrastructure. Sure, I know about the height difference, but Derek. Derek! Have you already seen that video of that tiny kitten outsmarting that giant Doberman? That cat fucking wrecked him, got all the treats, the biggest bed, it’s really not about size, but what you do with it. Speaking about size”

Derek closes his eyes to brace himself, and when he opens it again, he knows- he fucking knows he has a déjà vu.

He is staring at a rabbit on the road. It is brown and big and a second before, it was not there. He immediately feels adrenaline rushing through him, wanting to warn the little rodent to get off the busy street, but there is no car in sight.

The rabbit looks around, sniffs the air, and hops away, disappearing in the corn field.

And just like that, Derek remembers.

He remembers the road trip with Cora.

Them slowly gravitating back to the pack that had taken her in after the fire.

In Brazil, he had been invited to stay as well, be part of a pack again. He remembers how he had not been able to stay, no matter how much he had wished for it. Being together with his sister again, being part of a pack again, having this feeling of belonging and security. He remembers all the self-hatred, how he had told himself he did not deserve to belong anywhere. He remembers the guilt, the ugliness inside him and the fear of being pitied.

He remembers rejecting Cora. Leaving. He remembers driving around aimlessly, sleeping in filthy motels or napping in his car in abandoned parking lots next to the road.

He remembers seeing himself in the rearview mirror, the bathroom mirror in the motels, sometimes a clean window, and glowering at his own image in hatred.

Why him?

Why did he deserve such a horrible past?

Why did so many people in his life have to die?

Why did he have to survive if it was his fault they were dying?

And why did it not seem to ever get better?

He remembers scenting the danger and magic, stopping the car on the roadside. He remembers leaving the road with his car, and instead driving into the forest, the moon hanging high. He remembers crashing the sacrifice ceremony, seemingly out of spite, not knowing whether he was fighting for the right or wrong side. He remembers the carnage, tearing the figures in dark hoods apart, not leaving corpses behind, but remnants of magic and glowing light, the figures being torn apart like a balloon with nothing more than a ghost left behind.

He remembers the woman tied up against the tree, and how she had promised an exchange for rescuing her from being sacrificed.

“I want to reward you, but I can only give something if first something is taken.”

He remembers how he had agreed, shrugging his shoulders, still feeling high on adrenaline. He blood had rushed in his ears, and he had thought about how he had nothing to lose.

“What do you take?”, he had asked.

“Nothing important. Only memories. You can survive without them, only miss them, maybe.”

“I doubt that”, he had huffed.

So, he had agreed. He had written that note to himself as she had instructed him, because she would not be able to assist him once he had lost his memory. He had written the note, circled Beacon Hills on the map, put it into the car and not thought about anything coming after.

“So?”, she had asked, and smiled at him nicely. “What do you wish for?”

“A second chance”, he had replied, like the answer had not been conscious, but instead broken out of him against his will. He had felt open and exposed at that moment. “Like, a second chance at life, at being happy.”

*

Derek remembers.

He blinks and turns to look at Stiles. The younger man is now animatedly talking about erectile disfunction and Derek cannot help but smile. Fondly, he watches him and tries to piece together his life anew.

He remembers how he had lost his memory. He does not remember anything after uttering his wish, which mildly makes sense. As to for how his car had turned up next to the road after he had left it in the middle of a forest and how he himself had woken up in a field… he supposes it had also been the witches doing. He is sure she had been a witch. How he is so sure, he does not know. He does not even care that much, because he figures he had gotten quite a good deal.

Lose your memory and get a wish for free, had been the deal.

Now his memory has returned and he is able to realize, his wish has come true.

“Dude, are you looking at the road?”, Stiles interrupts his thoughts. Immediately after he says it, he smirks and gets a sly look in his eye. “Or are you looking at something sexier? I get it, you don’t fancy curvy roads, but tall, lanky, squishy humans. I got you all figured out, sexywolf.”

“Oh, you have?”, Derek answers, grinning wildly.

Stiles waggles his eyebrows.

Derek sighs, but complies and waggles his eyebrows in return.

“Come ‘ere”, Stiles tells him, unbuckling Derek’s seatbelt with a snap of his fingers. He directs the werewolf to lean in. Derek does so willingly, letting his lips be claimed by the younger man. He hums against Stiles’ lips as they kiss.

“Gotta reward you for your awesome eyebrow game”, Stiles informs him after he pulls back, only a little to look the werewolf in the eyes.

“Are you sure this isn’t a fetish?”, Derek jokes. Stiles laughs, poking Derek in the ribs. He then musters Derek in silent wonder, and Derek has to ask.

“What?”

“What’s got you thinking? I know there’s something on your mind, worrywolf.”

“It’s”, For a second, he wants to say, it is nothing, but then he gets a hold of himself and continues, “I just got my last memory back.”

Stiles’ eyes widened.

“The one about”, he leaves the sentence hanging. Derek nods.

“I remember how I lost my memory.”

“How did it happen?”

“Just like the note said. I exchanged my memories for something better.”

“What for? And will you have to return it now that you have your memory back? Was that like renting a flat? You can use it for a limited amount of time and then you get your security deposit back?”

Derek hesitates. He can still hear the cars rushing by from now and then, but it is calmer already. It does not seem like someone could crash his car in the next few seconds. He takes a deep breath and reaches for Stiles’ hand.

“I- No, I don’t think I have to give my wish back. At least, I don’t think it’s up to that witch who took it from me in the first place”, he stops to search Stiles’ face. He looks at him, confusion written all over his face, but also expectance. “I wished for a second chance at happiness”, he puts out there, feeling like he has just dished a meal without checking for taste first. He cannot wait for what Stiles is going to say, so, he rushes on, “So, if you want to leave me someday, then that is up to you, of course, but I don’t think the witch will turn up at our house to take my life- my happiness away from me. That sounds like too much effort to me. I don’t- I don’t think she’d do that.”

He looks at Stiles helplessly, brushing his thumb over the other man’s hand.

Stiles still stares at him, with big honey-brown eyes. Then, he slowly starts to smile. Something clicks and only as Stiles envelopes him ins his arms, does Derek realize it’s the snapping of his seatbelt. Then his nose is already buried into the space beneath Stiles’ ear, taking in the calming, familiar scent of his mate. He can feel Stiles’ breath ghost over his skin and then there is a slight press of lips against his own throat and Stiles pulls back, kissing him lightly on the lips.

“I totally knew you’re a softie”, he mumbles as he straightens his clothes and sits back in his own seat. He pointedly looks at the road before them, the reason they are here. “Don’t worry, sweetwolf. I won’t leave you. I’m already looking at designs for jacuzzies for the Hale-Stilinski house.”

Derek smiles as he feels the warmth spread in his chest and all over. He looks at the man that is his mate, and Stiles pretends to ignore him, but he can clearly see him smiling as well. Derek leans back, and remembers how worried he was about getting his memories back.

He would have had every reason to worry.

Getting his memories back, returning from being free of any past to having the most painful losses and betrayals behind him, none of them healthily processed, none of them even digested.

He wonders about his past self. If he had known about Stiles being his mate all along. About writing that little note.

“Find Stiles. You can trust him.”

He reaches for his mate’s hand, placing a kiss on the knuckles.

“Size is everything. Godzilla would destroy King Kong in a second”, he says calmly, waiting for the outrage that is undoubtably to follow.

*

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Happy New Year to you all!
> 
> I hope 2021 well be better 0.0
> 
> I also hope you enjoyed this story! I had lots of fun writing it ^^


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